Bruises
by Tahllydarling
Summary: After Natasha is tortured for several days, Clint is the only person she can stand being close to. As the truth emerges, can he piece her back together or will her experiences tear them both apart? * Rated M due to violence, torture, implied sexual assault and emotional scars.* Eventual BlackHawk **COMPLETE**
1. Chapter 1

For several months he had tried to conceal the desire that he felt for her whenever they were in close proximity but he knew that he was fighting a losing battle. His desire for her would be his undoing and quite possibly the end of his career with SHIELD. He had made his peace with that thought some time ago and was content to sacrifice life as he knew it for a chance to be the one man that she lit up for when she stepped into a room. Now however, she needed him more than she had ever needed him before and he was determined that no matter the cost he would be there for her.

Just last night he had extracted her from a hostage situation in which she had been held and tortured for four days. Natasha hadn't needed to explain anything, it had been evident when he found her that she had been beaten and that her suffering had been extensive. There were a small army of department shrinks desperate to talk to her about her 'ordeal' but she wanted nothing to do with anything that involved verbalising the horrors she had lived through. In fact, Barton was the only member of SHIELD that she would tolerate being anywhere near her and that was how he had ended up locked away with her within the walls of his New York apartment. When off the grid was essential, he was confident that he could protect her here until she was ready to face the world again.

The problem didn't lie in his ability to keep her safe and make her feel secure, it lay in the fact that his rage toward those who had harmed her was almost blinding. Natasha hadn't slept since the extraction and he didn't imagine that she was any closer now than she had been in those first moments after he had got her out of there. He knew how it felt to be afraid to close his eyes. He knew how it felt to fear the horrors in his head. He, Clint 'Hawkeye' Barton, was the perfect choice of companion for her right now because he too had recently had his power stripped away from him by another.

"How did you do it Barton?" she asked quietly, turning her hollow eyed gaze from the wall to look in his direction. "I don't know what to do now, it's like my entire life has been erased and all I have left is the time in that bunker."

Clint turned away from the window and met her gaze, surprised by how steady his own voice sounded in the confines of the room. "We'll take each day as it comes," he replied softly, "it'll take time but it will all start to fall back into place."

"I don't know where to start," she admitted. "When you go back to base and I'm left alone with this I won't..." her voice trailed off as the tears started. Natasha's entire body folded in on itself as she fought for control before descending into sobs that twisted something deep inside Barton's chest. He'd known her a long time, years, but until that moment he had never seen her cry.

With three steps across the room, he had her in his arms, cradling her petite body to his as he rocked her. She didn't fight his embrace, just leaned into him as though he were the only thing keeping her upright. The woman that he had known for the last six years was both fierce and strong; he hated to hear her so broken and lost. Unable to give her anything that would ease her pain, he gave her words, murmuring words of comfort and reassurance. "I'm not going anywhere Tasha," he promised her, "I'm here as long as you want me to be."

When she had regained enough composure to speak, she looked up at him, the air between them heavy with a tension that neither of them had ever felt so strongly. "I'm going to take a shower," she announced, her voice unsteady when she pulled away from him. He watched her walk away hating the limp that ruined her usually graceful stride and the way she clutched her injured ribs with one hand as she moved. Her face when she had looked up at him had been pale and haggard, she looked like a woman who had been relying on nothing more than the force of her own will to keep herself upright.

When more than half an hour had passed, Barton padded silently through the apartment toward the bathroom. They needed supplies but he didn't want to leave without telling her in case it caused her to panic. He also didn't relish the thought of stepping back through the door and finding her Beretta aimed at his head if he surprised her, even under extreme stress Natasha was a crack shot. The bathroom door swung open when he knocked to reveal air that was thick and heavy with steam. "Tasha?" he called over the splashing of the water on the tile, concerned in case she had slipped or fallen. "You okay?"

Pulling back the shower curtain, he found her collapsed on the tile, knees pulled up tight to her chest as she scrubbed at skin that was raw and bruised. Sobbing silently, she seemed intent on removing her skin entirely with the scrubbing brush that she clutched in her right hand. Cursing the men that had caused her harm, Barton stripped off his jeans and climbed in behind her, encircling her body with his own. Gentle reassurances fell from his lips as he prised the brush from her hands and rocked her gently. Natasha turned her face into his shoulder, her arms hesitantly coming up to encircle his neck while her blood dripped into the water that swirled down the drain. He saw the bruises, the ligature marks from where she had been bound, angry red and violet marks that spelled out exactly what her captors had done to her and he understood why she was trying to bleach their touch away with scalding water and that brush. Physical abuse left a legacy in flesh and bone but it didn't cause reactions like the one he was observing here, other types of abuse however would cause scarring that could crack a person wide open and leave them hating themselves. Given the opportunity he would personally end each and every one of those who had laid a hand on her.

He let her cling to him for what seemed like an eternity, her slender fingers digging into his skin as if clinging to solid ground in a storm. "That's right," he murmured encouragingly, "cry it out sweetheart. Get it out. I'm here. You're safe. I'm here."

When she had no more tears to shed, he shut off the water, wrapped her in a towel and carried her to bed. She weighed so little in his arms, and fit there so reassuringly with her head against his shoulder that it was almost as if he had been made to carry her around. He set her on the edge of the mattress and gave her some privacy to dress while he went to make her some tea. He had learned that Natasha Romanoff favoured tea at night and strong coffee in the morning, possibly a legacy of her Russian upbringing. He hoped that the familiarity of the ritual would bring her some comfort.

He returned to find her dressed in one of his old shirts, a pale blue button down from the selection of clothing that he had offered her when they arrived, and a pair of boxers. Trying not to think about how adorable she looked in his clothing, he crouched in front of her and examined her wounds with gentle fingers. She watched him passively as he cleaned the grazes and wrapped clean bandages around the worst wounds on her arms. She looked beyond exhausted and she trembled slightly from the cold as he settled her into bed and pulled the covers up over her. He sat by the bed in silence as they both drank the tea that he had made and felt relieved when her shivers began to subside.

As he moved to leave, her hand shot out of the covers and closed gently around his arm. "I don't want to be alone," she whispered, voice raw from crying. It surprised him that she would want a man anywhere near her after her recent experiences but he wasn't sure that she saw him as a man right now. Right now he was just Barton, the man who had saved her and sworn to keep her safe. "Will you stay with me?" she patted the mattress beside her, her eyes imploring him to agree. He nodded, retreating into the bathroom to shed his wet shorts and pull on his jeans. He was shirtless but he didn't think she would mind and it would be more efficient for sharing body heat.

Natasha curled up on her side as he dimmed the lights and slipped in between the covers, wrapping one arm around her waist and spooning his body around hers. He used his free hand to prop his head up so that he could study her as she stared off into the semi darkness of the room, silent tears running from her eyes. He couldn't ignore the way that she shivered and leaned into the heat of his body. He rubbed his hand in circles on her stomach, soothing her as she warmed up and relaxed against his chest.

"Thank you," she murmured, all resistance fading as sleep crept up on her, "for everything." She squeezed his hand, half turning so that she rested in the crook of his arm. Slowly her breathing evened out and her eyelids fluttered closed. After almost thirty six hours, Natasha slept. Barton eased her damp hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear, content to watch over her until sleep claimed him or morning came.


	2. Chapter 2

Barton woke suddenly, all of his defences coming online as adrenaline flooded his system. Natasha tossed in her sleep, her eyes rolling beneath her eyelids and she flailed beneath the covers. Without thinking, he rolled over, moving to stop her from injuring herself further he grasped her wrists gently and pinned them loosely to the mattress. It was a move they'd done for one another a hundred times, maybe a thousand, but it was exactly the wrong thing to do given her current state of mind. Predictably, she reacted with panic and confusion, self-defence training rushing to the surface as she lurched to one side, lashing out with a well placed blow to his face, her body twisting from his grip and moving over his until she pinned his arms beneath her knees and her forearm was across his throat.

He could have fought her, was fairly sure that he was strong enough to throw her off him but any response now would only incite violence in her. If she considered herself under threat, she would fight him to the death and he wanted to defuse the situation without further violence if possible.

"Nat," he ground out, knowing that he only had a limited time to get through to her before she cut off his oxygen supply and he passed out. He had trained with her often enough so he knew just how lethal she could be when provoked. "Tasha... it's me, Barton."

Her eyes were open but there was no recognition in her face, no sense that she knew where she was or who she had trapped beneath her in the dark. Instead, something primitive and ferocious burned behind her eyes.

"Tasha..." he tried again, vision fading as his lungs screamed for oxygen. He saw a flicker of hesitation and capitalised on it. He moved quickly, rolling and pinning her body beneath his own, taking care not to bring his lower body into contact with hers in case he incited further panic. She struggled violently, forcing him to use his superior strength to prevent her from injuring him or further injuring herself.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she stilled, her chest heaving. With wild eyes she stared up at him, panic overriding her sense of self-awareness and then slowly he saw something shift in her features. There was a long pause and then an emotion that he didn't recognise flickered across her face. Her body shifted beneath his. "Clint?" she whimpered, fear lacing her voice. He reached out one hand to switch on the bedside lamp. Her eyes widened as she took in his features. "Oh God, what did I do to you?"

Reassuring her with calm words, Barton maintained eye contact and attempted to calm her. He released his grip on her and eased back onto his knees, raking hands through his hair. Natasha followed him, pulling her knees up on either side of his body on account of his proximity. With effort he hid his reaction when he noticed the bruising on her thighs, hand shaped and livid. It was neither the time or place for his anger. With shaking fingers she reached out and traced across his nose and cheekbone, he was surprised by the gentleness of her touch but not by the pain that it caused. "You got me a good one," he exclaimed, wiping away the blood that trickled from his nose.

"I'm sorry," she exclaimed reaching for the towel that he had wrapped her in when he brought her from the shower. She pressed the cool, still damp, fabric to his face to stem the bleeding and reduce any swelling that might accompany it. Although he knew that it would be more efficient for him to treat the injury himself, he surrendered to her ministrations and let her fuss over him a little because he knew that she needed to be a caregiver in this moment and not to think of what had caused her to lash out.

"I'm okay," he reassured her, silently assessing the ache that seemed to radiate from his nose to his left cheekbone and thud in time with his pulse. There would be some bruising but he didn't think that anything was broken. "How about you, do you want to talk about it?"

Natasha's hand stilled in its movement, resting momentarily against his cheek as she met his gaze directly, weighing his words. There was a moment of silence, pulsing with an intensity that he couldn't explain, and then she shook her head. "Not now," she replied. "Right now all I really want to do is try to get some sleep. "

He accepted her decision, understood it and made the decision not to push. She would talk when she was ready and he would be there when the time came. She waited until he had stretched out beside her on the mattress and then dimmed the light. The fact that she didn't extinguish it spoke volumes.


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha woke slowly, as if from a dream where the horrors of the past few days were temporarily forgotten. He was no longer in the apartment. Whispers of memory, words spoken in soft murmurs, informed her that he had gone out to get supplies but that he would be back soon. She pushed herself upright, wincing around the ache in her ribs, she had no idea how long she had slept, no clue as to the passage of time which seemed to move strangely around her. Minutes could feel like days and then if calendars and clocks were to be believed hours would pass by in what seemed like seconds.

The injuries were still painful but they would heal, she knew that when she stretched her limbs beneath the sheets. The chorus of aches was not as loud as it was when he first brought her back there and for that she was thankful. It was about the only thing she was thankful for. She didn't lift the sheet and turn her face toward the light to look at the bruises that still marred her, she didn't need to, they were imprinted in her skin, as were the broken memories of how she obtained them. He could never know what she went through, not for sure. She wasn't sure that she even wanted to know the entirety of what happened to her in that room. The truth, she was sure, would break them both.

The events of recent days and the drama of the previous evening swirled together, leaving her trying to process a dizzying swirl of unwanted emotions, violence and blood. Natasha gripped the sheets with numb fingers and tried to sort through the barrage of memory that assaulted her. _Red blood on tile. Blood on bed sheets. Sterile surgical implements. Bone cracking under blows. Shackles. Rough hands on skin. Barton's face above hers. Needles being forced into her veins. Vile whispers in her ears. Soft words in the dark. Cold chains against her skin. Warm skin against her back. _Past and present shifted around her as her breath caught and a sob tried to force its way out of her throat, settling instead in her chest where it choked her and made her feel like she couldn't breathe.

Forcing herself from the bed, she moved around the apartment trying to force her body into some sort of normality. Movement, she needed to move, needed to feel the burn of exertion in her muscles rather than anxiously waiting for the fragments to realign. Forgoing her usual cup of coffee, Natasha returned to the bedroom and searched through the drawer which Clint had set aside for her in each and every one of his hideaways, a courtesy that she returned in each of her own apartments, until she found what she was looking for. Once she was dressed in her workout gear, wearing one of his shirts over her usual attire to hide the bruising, she felt decidedly more human.

Returning to the kitchen she snagged a bottle of water from the fridge, scrawled a quick note for him so that he wouldn't worry when he returned and found her gone and headed for the door. She made it to the top of the stairs before her heart started to pound and her chest began to feel so tight she could barely breathe. Sweat made her palms slick and the foyer swirled around her, forcing her to grab onto the banister to stop herself from tumbling down the seven flights to the lobby below. "Come on Romanoff, get a grip on yourself. You've survived way worse than this," she scolded, forcing herself onwards.

By the time she reached the ground floor and the street exit of the building she was exhausted, shaking and sweating as though she'd run a marathon. The room around her swam, walls closing in on her but she felt an enormous sense of achievement that she hadn't given up. She'd never been the kind of woman who allowed fear to dominate her and she had no intention of starting now. After stopping to lean against the wall for a moment, she pushed on and out into the street. She had every intention of taking a run through the park, just a gentle jog to clear her head and help her feel some semblance of normality, just a chance to feel the sun on her skin after days in the dark. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the shaking of her legs she slipped on her sunglasses and set a gentle pace.

Good intentions only carried her so far. As soon as Natasha reached the park, jogging along its well-defined paths, she found herself avoiding other members of the public and picking up the pace. It wasn't intentional but she found that the faster she moved the easier it was to focus on the ache in her muscles and the pain in her ribs than the thoughts she wanted to avoid. Back when she had been with the Red Room she'd survived worse she told herself, of course back then she hadn't always had to live with the memories of what had been done to her, memory altering drugs had seen to that. At least they had spared their girls the full horror of what they had done to them – almost considerate when she thought back on it.

Although she knew that she should stop and heed the warning signs that her body was giving her, she also knew that the moment she stopped moving she would have to face the emotions that were bubbling and simmering inside of her. Natasha was not the kind of woman who processed emotion well, even when the emotions were her own. Running until she was too exhausted to stay upright was infinitely more appealing than having to face reality. Nevertheless she would allow herself one more lap before she headed back to apartment. Broken ribs aside, there was only so much running she could do on an empty stomach and she didn't want to make any of her injuries worse by pushing too hard.

She almost collided with him on her third circuit around the lake, not noticing him deliberately placing himself in her path until she was almost on top of him. One glance was enough to tell her exactly what her partner thought of her behaviour and he was not impressed. Even through his sunglasses she could feel the disapproval in his stare and when combined with the frown that he wore and his tense posture, she could tell that he wasn't happy with her. Worse still, almost as soon as she stopped running, her body seemed to shut down on her, heart pounding, ribs aching, limbs shaking. She clutched her ribs and bent over, trying to get her breath back and failing. "Needed to clear my head," she explained, hoping that the words would be enough to explain what she knew had been a reckless decision.

Clint nodded once but she knew he was holding back. "Next time, wait for me," he said finally. "Now come on, since I know you didn't eat anything before you came out here I'm going to make you breakfast."


	4. Chapter 4

After two days of watching her pushing her body beyond the limits of its endurance, as if punishing it for some sort of betrayal, he had known that he needed to do something before she did herself serious harm. Clint was not a fool, he understood her nature just as well as she did, Natasha was a strong woman and having been made into a victim did not sit well with her. He also knew that there was no use in trying to outrun what had happened, it would catch up with her eventually.

"You want to take me where?" she asked, staring at him in a way that made him question the sanity of the idea that he had laid before her when he had found her prowling the roof terrace. She had been up since first light and had already worked her muscles to the point of exhaustion.

Clint handed her the mug of coffee he had made her, noting that she immediately set it aside to resume hitting the punch-bag that hung in front of her. She had barely eaten, only seeming to remember that food was necessary when he made a point of making something for her, and even then only managing to force down a few mouthfuls before she pushed her plate away. "Out of the city," he repeated, "we'll spend a few days out on the land, hiking, hunting, that sort of thing."

Grasping the punch-bag, she looked at him again. Barton didn't miss the way she swayed on her feet, or the fact that the bag was pretty much the only thing holding her up. "You really think it'll help?" she asked.

"It helped me," he replied seriously. "If you don't want to go we can stay here Tasha, I just know that being out of the city for a few days, away from people and the noise, really helped me to feel more like me when I could barely get through the day without seeing the ghosts I was trying to get away from, but it's your decision."

"I'll think about it," she replied, bracing herself to resume her workout. Barton said nothing about the pounds that had already dropped from her slender frame, pounds that she could not really afford to lose, making her face gaunt and her collar bones stand out in sharp relief. He nodded once and retreated to the apartment.

When she woke sweating and shaking at three in the morning, her breathing ragged in the darkness of the bedroom, he was already awake. He watched her curl up, hugging her knees tightly to her chest as she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and waited to see whether she wanted to talk. He had heard her distress as she talked in her sleep, pieced together the words as she poured out her pain into the dark, subconscious overflowing with all that she refused to talk about. He had heard the hurt, the pain, the loneliness and the anger that were warring for dominance within her and he had bled with and for her as she relived something that would have broken most women.

After a long moment, she reached out and shook him gently by the arm, obviously unaware that he was awake at her side. She'd been oddly insistent that he sleep at her side since the first night and he had complied, assuming that she felt safer with him there. "Let's do it," she exclaimed determinedly, "I can't live like this. Tomorrow morning we'll pack up and go."

"Don't you want to know where we're going?" he enquired quietly. Natasha shook her head, red curls bouncing around her face. Her fingers found his own, squeezing briefly before letting go.

"It doesn't matter where we go," she replied quietly, "as long as it's just you and me."


	5. Chapter 5

They didn't arrive at the cabin until the following evening and by the time they got there they were both tired from the journey. The flight had been quiet, uneventful, but they'd still had a long drive to reach their destination and he'd had to stop to let her out of the truck several times when the confines of the cab had become too stifling to bear.

He had known the moment she set eyes on the cabin that he had brought her to the right place, it was written in the expression on her face when they pulled up outside. It wasn't often that he saw an expression of child-like wonder on the face of his partner, wasn't sure that he had ever seen it, and he found a sense of satisfaction that he had been able to offer it.

"It's yours?" she asked as he opened the way and let her inside. He watched her take in the rustic furniture, polished floors, colourful woven rugs and the state of the art security system that he had fitted a few years back with approval. He had never brought anyone out there, keeping the cabin as his own sanctuary, a place where he could drop off the grid entirely.

"It is," he confirmed, dropping the bags to the floor and switching on the standing lamp behind the armchair, silently thankful that he had been there only two weeks earlier and given the place its spring cleaning, "belonged to my grandfather. He used to bring me out here on the weekends when I was a kid."

It didn't take long to show her around, there were only five rooms, each of them strictly functional. She didn't say much but that was becoming the norm for them in recent days but he found her out on the porch after he had finished unpacking, staring out into the night and he could sense a calmness in her that had been lacking in recent days. It wouldn't last but it was a start.

"It's beautiful here," she exclaimed without turning. It was part of her gift that she always knew exactly where he was, even though he could creep up on almost anyone but her, she always knew. He stepped closer, careful not to crowd her. She turned to him, eyes bright in the dark. "You came here after New York didn't you?"

"This is my home more than anywhere else I've been," he replied honestly. "It's the only place that I can find myself no matter how lost I seem to get and it's the only place I've ever felt solitude and security all in one breath."

They stayed out there for a while longer, listening to the movement of the wind through the branches and the wildlife of the forest. He offered her the bed, intending to sleep in the armchair or on the floor, but she merely moved over to the furthest edge of the mattress and looked at him expectantly. Only after the lights were extinguished and velvet darkness enveloped them, did he consider he wonder whether being away from civilisation would allow her to face her deepest fears and how she would deal with them when they surfaced.

The night passed calmly, her body too exhausted to even allow the nightmares to surface, but Barton knew that the calm could not last.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hold up Nat!" he called, jogging along the game trail behind her. She stopped, turned to look back at him, glazed eyes searching their surroundings as if she were contemplating heading off the path and into the undergrowth. He didn't like the strain that he saw in her face, the way that she seemed to be avoiding him with every step. She had stripped down to a vest and shorts, leaving her arms bare to the thorns and brambles that lined most of the trails. Blood ran from scratches on her arms and shoulder, the result of an altercation with a patch of thorns.

"Stay away from me," she panted, bracing her palms against her thighs as she tried to catch her breath. She'd set a punishing pace since they had left the cabin that morning, the apparent calm of the previous evening wiped away by whatever had surfaced during the night and caused her to pace the living room until sunrise.

Holding up his hands and maintaining a distance of a few feet between them, he gestured to her arm before reaching for the waterskin at his waist. "You're bleeding Nat, let me clean it."

There was surprise in her eyes when she looked down and saw the blood that flowed freely.

"Just don't touch me," she instructed, angling her arm toward him so that he could pour water over the wounds. He heard the panic in her voice and the plea for understanding. Finally, after days of harming herself, she could do no more than try to outrun the horrors. He had known it would happen; he had counted on it. If he had to let her take out her anger on him, he would do it. If she had to beat him into the ground to ease the tension, he would let her, even if it meant that he would never be the same afterwards.

"You should drink something," he coaxed, offering her the water. Natasha stared at him warily, muscles taught as if ready to bolt at any moment. They had been hiking for hours, climbing higher and higher up into the mountains with each hour that passed. Not for the first time Barton was glad that he had brought bed rolls and his favourite compact bow with him. It had already been a long day and he had a strong suspicion that they would not be returning to the cabin before nightfall.

"Just let me be," she whirled and pushed on further up the trail, scrambling over fallen trees with little of her usual grace. He could see that she wasn't moving properly, her muscles too tight, her body rebelling against the demands she was placing on it day after day.

Sipping the water, he sighed and turned his attention to the sky, calculating how much daylight they had left and wondering where he could steer her that might allow her to burn off some energy without the need for relentless forward momentum. He would get her through this, he didn't know how, but he would get her through the day and those that followed somehow.

Leaning against a boulder as he skinned the rabbit that he had hunted down for dinner and prepared it for cooking, Barton kept one ear on the rhythmic sound of an axe colliding with a nearby tree trunk. After some persuasion he had managed to steer Natasha toward the clearing grandfather had shown him near the top of the deer trail and had set her to work chopping firewood that would see them through the night. Not only did the axe allow her an outlet for her anger, more importantly it provided one that would keep her in one place for a while. He'd even managed to snag a couple of rabbits with his bow while she was busy, ensuring that they would have the chance to eat something other than the fruit and snacks that he had packed for the day.

It had taken him hours to coax a little food and water into her but he succeeded in getting her to slow her pace a little and nibble on a sandwich as the afternoon wore on. Now as dusk approached, he was wondering how much longer she could keep moving. Surely she would need to stop and rest for a while now that the sun was beginning to sink into the horizon?

"How's the firewood coming along?" he called, moving toward the clearing where she had chopped constantly for the last hour or so. She looked up at him, eyes full of shadows and gestured toward the pile of freshly chopped timber that had been steadily growing on the other side of the clearing to where she stood. Wiping the sweat from her eyes, she lowered the axe, using it to partially support her weight as her legs trembled beneath her.

He didn't catch her when she collapsed to the ground, not wanting to intrude on her precarious self-control. She ended up sitting down, axe falling to the floor between her feet, all but forgotten in the moment, breath heaving in and out of her lungs. Approaching cautiously, he waited while she sucked in air through clenched teeth, her muscles so tight that he began to worry that she would snap something. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she gulped in air, fighting for control.

It only lasted a moment or two. It felt like a lifetime. When it passed, she slumped forward and cried so hard that he had to hold back his own tears. She fought when he reached out and put his arms around her, but there was no temper behind her actions and her resistance only lasted a moment. As she cried he held her, rocking her gently until she relaxed enough to lean into his shoulder and accept the comfort that he was offering.

"I'm so tired Clint," she admitted quietly, "but it's inside me and the only way I can get it out is to keep moving, it just pushes me harder and harder until..."

"Shhh," he comforted, reassured that she had spoken to him after hours of near silence interspersed with snarled demands for space. "Come on, let's build a fire and bed down in the clearing for the night."

She didn't fight as he raised her up from the floor, leaving the axe behind and moving to where he had already collected a small pile of kindling to make a cooking fire. With a raised eyebrow in his direction when she noticed his efforts, she turned her attention to unpacking the sleeping bags and arranging them on the floor, limping a little as her muscles protested even that small movement. She disappeared to the creek that ran along the furthest edge of the clearing as he built up the fire, returning a few minutes later looking cleaner, a small wash cloth in her hand. "Barton?"

"Hmm?" he replied, busying himself with the fire.

"I'm starved." Relief washed over him, his heart sang in his chest. After refusing food all day, she was hungry.

He looked up, finding her looking at him with an expression of exhaustion. "Then you'll be delighted to know that I'm fixing dinner. Caught us a couple of rabbits while you were busy with the tree back there." She watched him as he prepared their dinner, moving around the clearing, restless but no longer driven to keep moving. He took it as a good sign when she finally sat down on her bed-roll and an even better one when she reached eagerly for the food he had prepared for her. It was the first full meal that he had seen her eat since they'd been together. Side by side they ate, small talk about the terrain and the game that they might come across in the area filling the silence.

She had been treating her body like an enemy worthy of nothing but punishment and contempt and she was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Before he had even finished packing away the leftovers of their meal, silently thanking his grandfather for teaching him how to survive off the land all those years ago, Natasha was asleep. Draping another blanket over her, he leaned back against the trunk of a nearby tree and allowed himself to think back to the moment he had found her in that basement room.

He had been the one to force open the heavy steel door to that room and find her, her limp body curled up on a cold concrete floor that was stained with her own blood. She was chained down, her hands fastened behind her back with iron shackles that had cut into her wrists, her ankles secured to bolts in the floor by short chains that gave her next to no opportunity to move around. She'd been barely conscious, too weak with dehydration and exhaustion to do more than lie in a pool of her own blood. He had seen with his own eyes the blood that had covered her from hairline to jaw, a wound that had been left to bleed, had seen the bruises and the cuts that had been inflicted upon her, the burns and lash marks, the blood and bruises that stained her thighs.

He had seen the stainless steel table covered in torture implements, lined up in neat rows and stained by blood. He had seen the table with the restraints and the evidence that it had been recently used. In a room charged with dead energy, he had catalogued her injuries and the evidence of what had happened to her. So much blood, so many indications that she had been brutally tortured by the men who had held her in those days. The memories of cutting her loose were hazy but he remembered finding her clothes and making sure that she was covered up before he carried her to the door of the building. She had leaned heavily on him, one arm around his shoulders while his own wrapped around her waist, so that she could walk out of the building on her own two feet and face the other agents who were still searching for her. He had known how important it would be to her not to be seen as a victim, not to let others see exactly how she had been victimised.

Throughout all that followed, he stayed close to her side. While she drifted in and out of consciousness, submitted to the attentions of her assigned medic, she had kept her grip on his hand, her eyes locked onto the wall opposite her. When a full medical was suggested she refused, coldly informing anyone that approached that she was fine and just needed some space. They didn't believe her but nobody forced the Black Widow to do anything. When she had begged him to get her off base and away from the people who wanted to get inside her head, he had agreed, telling Fury that they would be leaving and that he would stay with her until she was fit to return to duty or ready to talk.

The last few days had been without doubt the most gruelling he had ever experienced. He didn't regret the choice he had made though, not for a moment, but one thing he knew for sure was that he would never forget how it felt to find her in that room as long as he lived. He could only imagine how it felt to live with the actual memories of those days.


	7. Chapter 7

She was already awake when he woke the next morning, had already washed the sweat and dirt from her skin and hair in the creek and fixed a small breakfast of dried fruit and the remainder of last nights dinner. Every muscle in her body ached, and the pain in her ribs was too sharp for her to brush off as just mild strain on a healing wound, it was the kind of ache that told her she had pushed herself way too hard. There were reasons why it was not advisable for someone with cracked ribs to wield an axe and destroy a hundred year old oak using nothing but muscle and temper.

The need to move was rising in her again but it wasn't the same drive that had pushed them both past the point of endurance the previous day. Truthfully, she wasn't sure she had another day like that in her. She wasn't sure that he did either. He had given her everything she needed, open ground, space to manoeuvre and a way to expend the self-destructive energy that raged within her without turning it on herself. She really couldn't fault Clint, nobody else would have had the first idea how to relate to her in a situation like this.

They hiked at a steady pace, threading between thickets of trees and pushing through undergrowth, alternating between companionable silence and Barton's comments on the wildlife and plants that they passed. For the first time she realised just how much he knew about the landscape and came to appreciate the respect that he seemed to have for the forest around them. She let him tell her about hunting and living off the land, about the history of the mountains and share stories of the times that he had spent there as a boy, and as long as he talked she could feel the tension easing from her tired muscles.

As the day wore on the physical need to keep moving clashed with storms of emotion that swept through her without warning. To her frustration, Natasha found herself swinging between explosive anger, tearfulness and fear that almost crippled her. He gave her space when she needed it, didn't take offence when she flinched away from his touch, staring at him with open hostility, and held her while she broke down. She couldn't stay in his arms though, no matter how much she appreciated the attempts to soothe her, she couldn't stand the touch of his skin against hers when she was a powder keg of volatile emotions. She just couldn't bear the thought of hurting him if her restraint slipped.

At some point in the late afternoon, as they edged down one of the more rocky slopes that they had encountered, chattering about the weather and the wildlife, safe topics that couldn't stir up the memories that she was trying to avoid, something happened that brought the relative peace of the day crashing down around them. She had no idea how it happened, possibly because she was more focussed on the particularly funny anecdote he was sharing about a childhood hunting trip than watching where she stepped, but she stumbled and, acting on instinct, Clint reached out to steady her before she could fall.

The second his hands closed around her upper arms panic reared up in her, taking her back to that basement room and the rough hands and stale breath of her captors against her skin. She froze, heartbeat spiking, cold fear spreading through her chest. _Cruel hands forcing her down, holding her in place. Stale breath, laced with whiskey and nicotine. The cold edge of a knife blade sliding into her skin, drawing blood. A heavy backhand blow to the face. _Natasha tensed, tasted blood, and reacted. With no recognition of her surroundings she lashed out, grabbing her attacker and wrenching his arm around before throwing him over her shoulder. He landed with a pained grunt on the stony ground below her and she kicked out with her foot, her boot crashing into his ribs with a satisfying thud. Pain flared in her ribs, forcing her to bend, turn, and protect her injured side as she adopted a defensive stance and reached for the knife that she usually carried at her waist and finding nothing but empty air. That was when she heard his voice.

"'Tasha!" Familiar. Trusted. Partner ... Clint. Snapping back to the present, she saw her partner lying flat on his back before her, hands raised to ward off any further attack but making no attempt to move out of her path. Instinctively, he seemed to know that responding or making any outward sign of defending himself could tip her over the edge and release the violence that she had kept so tightly leashed throughout the day. "It's just me Natasha," he exclaimed breathlessly. He stared up at her, waiting for a sign of what she might do next, only speaking again when she made no attempt to continue the assault. His voice was filled with an understanding that she didn't deserve. "You okay?"

Natasha licked her lips and tasted blood again, realising that she had bit her own lip during her flashback. Typical Clint, more concerned about her when he was the one who had just been thrown to the ground and run the risk of her trying to kill him. Events began to make sense to her, she had slipped and he had caught her. She'd repaid that kindness by attacking him, again. "I'm okay," she replied, hating how shaky her voice sounded. "I don't know what happened there. I..." Her head spun crazily, leaving her feeling dizzy and disoriented.

He was on his feet in a second, encouraging her to move toward a larger rock and sit down with her head down until the moment passed. He didn't touch her, although she noticed that he stayed close enough to catch her if she passed out.

"It was a flashback wasn't it?" he asked quietly. Natasha flinched slightly, she wanted to deny it, hide the weakness, despite his soft tone and the understanding that she saw in his iron-grey gaze. He had carried her out of that room, he had seen her condition, helped her to dress and walk out of that building on her own two feet when she could barely find the strength to stand. He had climbed into the shower with her back at the apartment when she had broken down. Of course he knew what had happened to her, Clint was a perceptive man, skilled at reading people and their secrets, how could he have seen her in recent days and not know? He was the one who was painstakingly trying to put her back together, she owed him the truth. She nodded silently.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "It just seemed so real..." she shook herself, trying to find the words that could explain what had happened. "I lost myself for a moment, lost my bearings, and when you grabbed me I..."

"It's okay," he told her, crouching down so that he could meet her gaze. Sincerity. Trust. He didn't hate her for her erratic behaviour or the fact that she was shattering apart, unable to voice her fears or relive her horrors for fear that she wouldn't ever be able to hold her head up again. "It's okay."

Forcing down the dread that surged through her veins in place of her blood, she leaned toward him. Instantly he returned the gesture, resting his forehead against her own in a way that was both comforting and familiar. His eyes slipped closed and he breathed deeply, Natasha found herself echoing his gesture. They were two sides of the same coin she and Clint, different and yet exactly the same, faces indelibly etched into the metal for better or worse. In some ways they were almost exact opposites, fire and ice and yet in others they were more alike than most people realised; flawed, highly trained and deadly. They were the perfect counterpoint to one another, a balancing of skill and temperament that came along so rarely in their line of work. Every day she was thankful for him, for the balance he brought to her life.

How long they sat there, she didn't know, but as if by unspoken agreement they both rose to their feet and continued down the trail, carefully not touching one another once he had finished helping her to her feet. This time he led the way, seeming to have a destination in mind as he picked his way along the trail and turned toward the west. She could tell by the way he moved that he was favouring one side slightly and wondered whether that was just one more injury that she had inflicted upon her partner or if it was just the strain of recent days.

That night they slept under the stars, bed rolls unfurled at the edge of yet another picturesque clearing. While she busied herself with collecting kindling for a fire, he took himself off into the trees, returning a short while later with another couple of rabbits and a collection of wild herbs that he had managed to find. They both took the time to bathe away the exertions of the day beneath the waterfall that bordered the camp, while he fixed a stew that bubbled over the fire. Huddling close to the heat of the small camp fire, she ate everything he offered her, surprised that she had any appetite at all after the events of the afternoon.

She was half asleep before she finished the coffee that he made for her, already tucked up in her bed to ward off the cool night air, aware of his presence nearby while he sang soft folk songs by the fireside. She'd learned a long time ago and half the world away that Clint was a surprisingly good singer. Lulled by the warmth of the fire and the sound of his voice, she slept.

After Natasha fell asleep, Barton spent a while staring up at the stars. He had always felt at home in the wild, just as he had always felt comfortable in the high places that most people wouldn't even contemplate climbing to, he had always liked his space and the feeling of freedom that those places gave him. It seemed that being out in the open was working for Natasha too. Since they had left the cabin the previous morning she had been eating and sleeping better, while the afternoons events suggested that the memories were surfacing. Only his quick reflexes had saved him from bruised or broken ribs when she had attacked him but the blow had been worth it to force an admission that she wasn't really okay past her lips. Not that she'd actually said those exact words, he doubted Natasha Romanoff would ever utter those words to another human being, but she had told him in her own way. That was enough for him.


	8. Chapter 8

It was approaching sunset when they arrived back at the cabin, both of them dusty and tired from the hike back down the mountain and through the forest. Natasha's state of mind had seemed much clearer throughout the day and she had instigated conversation about the wildlife, even going so far as to tease him about the possibility of them having something other than rabbit for dinner, which he had taken as a positive sign that she intended to continue eating.

The cabin was stuffy after being locked up for a couple of days and the air was stale after the soaring temperatures of the afternoon so he grabbed them a couple of beers and they sat out on the porch. As he watched his partner examining her sunburn, he contemplated what he could fix them for dinner. Having come out here on a whim, he hadn't really thought about having supplies delivered and though they had enough to keep them going for a couple of days he didn't particularly want to dish up something entirely unappealing when she had so little appetite.

"I can't believe that I managed to get a sunburn!" she grumbled, casting a glance in his direction. "You manage to come back looking like you took a beach vacation and I get to look like a strawberry for the rest of the night."

"It's not that bad," he assured her, inwardly cursing himself for not considering the effect that exposure to the mid-summer sun might have on her porcelain pale Russian skin. "I think I might have something I could put on it for you, if you want me to look for it?"

He didn't miss the slight reaction but she composed herself quickly and nodded her agreement. She was curled up in the rocking chair, one foot down on the porch to maintain her momentum when he triumphantly returned with the lotion and another beer for each of them. Despite her outward appearance of being relaxed, he could sense the tension in her again, it was in the way she clutched one knee to her chest and in the way she surveyed the road that led to the cabin and the trees that bordered it.

When she removed her shirt so that he could apply the lotion, he took the opportunity to swiftly assess her injuries, noting that the bruises were now beginning to fade and the stitched wounds were healing better than he had expected after the exertions that she had put them through. Her muscles were tight under his hands as he smoothed the lotion onto her heated skin and he was acutely aware of her breathing, noting the physiological signs of stress. He was about to stop when she grabbed his wrist, hard fingers digging in tightly against bone. "Don't pull away," she said quietly. "I need to get past this, if it gets too much I'll let you know."

"For the record," he told her calmly, "I'd prefer it if you told me with words rather than throwing me in the dirt..." Her head shot around, eyes narrowed and he smiled at her easily, never removing his hands from her shoulders as he worked in the lotion with smooth gentle strokes. He'd always known just how to push her buttons, just as he'd always known that his smile could usually diffuse her irritation. "Just saying Nat."

Her irritated Russian grumbling reminded him of countless missions where he had deliberately wound her up just to spark a reaction or break the silence. It had the desired effect however, while she focussed on being irked about what he had said she relaxed beneath his touch and barely seemed to notice when his movements ceased to be about the application of skin care products and became about massaging the tension out of her neck and shoulders.

"What do we have for dinner?" she asked lazily, head falling forward as he worked on a particularly tight knot at the base of her neck.

Barton considered the question and told her the options, earning a snort of laughter from her. "I could head out with the bow and see if I can bring down a deer," he suggested. "You could either come along or you could stay here and chill out for a while, put your feet up and enjoy the quiet." In all their years as partners he wasn't sure that he'd ever seen Natasha Romanoff put her feet up. He watched her as she considered the options, weighing up whether she felt safe enough being alone or would be better off with him, and then she nodded her agreement.

By the time he was through, she was more relaxed than he had seen her in days, leaning into his touch in a way that told him everything he needed to know about the trust she had in him.

"If you go hunting I could take a shower before dinner, try to make myself look at least half clean after three days in the wild," she mused. "Besides, venison does sound good and the meat would last us a couple of days wouldn't it?" He smiled at that even though she couldn't see his reaction and resisted the urge to tell her that taking a shower would undo all the work he had just done to moisturise her shoulders. If she was willing to stay at the cabin alone it meant that she felt safe there and he was sure that was exactly the reaction he had been hoping for.

He was quite correct when he had thought he wouldn't be gone too long. Within an hour he had brought down a deer and dragged it back to the cabin, where he cleaned and dissected it before disposing of the rest of the carcass a way back into the woods. There was a wolf pack in the area that would appreciate the easy meal but he didn't want to encourage them too close to the house. While he wrapped and stored the remainder of the meat in the fridge, Natasha prepared vegetables that he had picked up on their trip through town on the way out there. They sipped beers on the porch while the stew simmered and then dragged the small table out there so that they could enjoy the cool evening air while they ate.

Tired from the long hike and two nights sleeping on hard ground, she was ready to turn in soon after they finished dinner and headed inside to get ready for bed. Barton lingered a few minutes, giving her the privacy she needed and then followed her inside, locking up behind him. He took a quick shower and emerged to find that she was already asleep, hogging the covers despite the warmth of the room. Shaking his head, he moved around the bed and climbed up onto the mattress, enjoying the softness after sleeping out in the open.

As he settled into a comfortable position on his side, allowing him to see the door, she rolled over to face him, her hand reaching out through the covers until it brushed against his own. She didn't wake but she didn't move away either. Closing his own eyes, he breathed in the scent of her shampoo and lapsed into a dreamless sleep of his own.


	9. Chapter 9

The change in her breathing woke him, snapping him out of a light sleep and he turned to face her, attention drawn to the rapid movement of her eyes beneath her closed eyelids. He reached for her, intending to shake her awake, and then thought better of it, remembering all to well what had happened the last time he tried to wake her. Any contact could be sucked into her nightmare and end up causing her more distress which was precisely the last thing he wanted.

Her body arched off the mattress, every muscle straining, clenching tightly as she fought an internal battle that he couldn't help her with. After a few minutes the tension ebbed out of her and she sank sweat soaked to the mattress again, a soft moan escaping her lips. Fighting his own battle, Barton tried to decide what to do. He felt like her should wake her, it was cruel to leave her suffering if he could avert it, but he already knew that she wouldn't talk to him about the nightmares. If he woke her up he knew that neither of them would get back to sleep, he didn't care. Remembering a dozen nights when he himself had woken sore and aching after one of his own nightmares, his mind trapped in images that he couldn't banish, he knew that he would have preferred to be awake all night than struggle with the lingering echoes the next morning. He could take her outside and sit with her under the night sky, walk her around the meadow for the rest of the night, he would do whatever she wanted to do, but he had to wake her.

He didn't get the chance.

Just as he was about to reach for her again, Natasha began to talk. She had talked in her sleep more than once since they had been sharing a bed but this time was different. This time the words poured from her, memories surfacing as her brain tried to purge the violent experiences that were poisoning her from within. Every word, every detail, was like a physical blow as the memories escaped her. Memories of what had happened before he found her merging with older memories of her time with the Red Room, all of them horrific, all of them locked away somewhere in her mind. How had she even survived it all?

He sat on the edge of the bed and flinched as she talked about the men who had hurt her, the ways they had abused her and he bowed his head as he absorbed the words. He was her only witness, he would bear the weight of her confessions because nobody else could possibly do so without seeing her differently. She talked and he listened, all the while feeling a growing weight in his chest, a pain that crystallised and shattered, searing every part of him and leaving him bleeding as surely as if a dagger had been plunged into his chest.

He watched her for several minutes after the talking stopped and then, once he was sure that she was once again sleeping deeply, he went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, fighting the urge to vomit. _No wonder she didn't want anyone near her. No wonder even the thought of anyone touching her was more than she could bear. _What had been done to her was not just torture for information, though that would have been bad enough, it was a systematic attempt to destroy her: body, mind and soul. Rage and horror mingled within him, burning like acid in his throat, settling like something toxic in his lungs and forcing him to move before he lashed out at something.

Padding through to the living room, he grabbed the bourbon that sat on the desk and headed out onto the porch. Dressed in only his pyjama pants, he took a generous swig from the bottle and let the cool air dry the sweat on his skin. Alone with the song of the crickets he braced his arms against the rail and tried to rein in his volatile emotions. He had seen the marks, the bruises, the fresh scars and he had thought that he had known what she went through but he had barely known anything. Natasha's suffering had been far more extensive than any of them could have realised. He knew that she wouldn't remember anything of what had just happened when she woke and for that he was thankful, wishing that he too could force away the newly dawning awareness that assaulted him with images of finding her, limp and bleeding in that room.

He stayed out on the porch until the sky began to lighten, silently turning over the ways in which he could track and kill those responsible for her pain. He was a good tracker and an excellent shot, he could be in and out of there before most of them knew they were in danger. Revenge wouldn't undo what had been done to her, but damn it would make him feel better. Once she was fully healed, he would go and see Fury to see whether there was scope for him to be sent on a very personal solo mission, but right now she was his priority.

Finding her still sleeping when he returned to the bedroom, he carefully stretched out on the mattress at her side once more. Almost immediately she opened her eyes and he found himself pinned in place under the weight of her gaze. She wasn't fully awake, he could tell by the way she moved. Usually Natasha came awake at the slightest sound, fully aware of her surroundings and ready for action but not this morning. Tired from her restless night, she could barely keep her eyes open but he could sense her awareness gathering momentum. Her fingers curled around his seeking comfort, and since she had instigated the contact and seemed comfortable with it, he wrapped her smaller hand in his.

"It's still early," he informed her quietly. "Sleep a while longer if you need to." She nodded, snuggling down into the pillows and closing her eyes. She didn't let go of his hand though, and for that he was grateful. He stared at the woman in front of him, a woman whose sudden vulnerability awakened all kinds of protective instincts in him and he knew that she was as much his anchor as he was hers. She was the one good reason he had to hold his temper. She was also the one good reason he had to unleash it.


	10. Chapter 10

Natasha slept late and woke to find that Clint had already taken himself outside to chop firewood. From the small window in the kitchen, surrounded by the sunny yellow curtains that she couldn't imagine him buying, she watched him at work, his muscular torso shimmering in the golden, late morning light. The sound of the axe whistling through the air and the rhythmic thwacking sound as the blade collided with the logs was oddly reassuring to her. She was growing to love the cabin, the promise of isolation and the stillness of the air at night when they sat on the porch together. She could fully understand why Clint found such serenity there.

They ate a light breakfast together and then moved outside to the meadow, performing a series of tai chi forms that would help to rebuild her strength and give them both something to focus on other than what had happened to her. At her side, Clint mirrored her movements, his own body moving with grace and precision as he stretched and twisted, easing away the exertion of chopping firewood. He had taught her this particular set of forms when she first joined SHIELD six years ago and shown her a non-destructive outlet for her frustrations when he did so. The movements were comforting, familiar, and Natasha found her body responding to the activity, her mind clearing as she focussed on the way her muscles stretched and the tension ebbed from the centre of her chest. By the time they had completed the routine three times, she found that all of the feelings of lingering unease had faded away.

In the afternoon Clint drove them into town to collect some supplies that would see them through the next few days. The nearest town to the cabin wasn't much to look at but it had everything a small town needed. They had made a list before leaving and knew exactly what they were there to collect. As they left the truck and moved through the parking lot, she found herself feeling lighter than she had in days, as if the weight that had taken form in her chest had lifted and the quietly festering soul wound that had tormented her since leaving that basement had been lanced.

"You need anything from the drug store?" he asked quietly, keeping pace with her as they approached the entrance to the store. Natasha knew why he was asking, her pain meds were running low and he had asked her more than once how she was faring on a lower than recommended dosage. He was also no doubt aware that women often required different products to men, none of which he would have at a cabin to which he had never taken anyone else.

"I could do with one or two things," she replied easily, "but we could go after we get the other stuff if you prefer?"

The shopping took less time than she expected and Natasha was amused at how efficiently Clint moved from section to section, picking out what they needed. It didn't surprise her that he knew exactly how to tell whether the fruit was ripe or that he could find his way around the produce section sourcing the best ingredients for the different meals he had considered making, he was a hell of a cook, which was fortunate as her own impressive skill set did not involve cooking. Fortunately, Clint had always liked spaghetti. Interested, she absorbed his comments on how to tell whether a melon was ripe or how to choose the best onions for a stew, barely noticing the other people in the store or the strange looks they cast their way. It wasn't until they were in the queue at the register that she began to feel slightly uncomfortable beneath the open speculation of the other patrons.

"Do they know you?" she asked, keeping her voice quiet enough that she wouldn't be overheard. She felt a twinge of unease as she realised just how many pairs of eyes seemed to focused almost exclusively on herself and her partner. It wasn't the quiet speculation of people in the city either, the locals were blatant as they took in the newcomers. For the first time in years Natasha felt self-conscious about the bruises on her arms and legs and wished that she had worn jeans and not the shorts and tank that she had favoured since their arrival.

As if he sensed her unease, Clint shifted a little closer to her. It was a subtle movement and she was willing to bet that most of the people around them would have missed it, but he leaned in and rested his arm against the back of her shoulder, reminding her that he was there at her side. The familiarity of his touch made her want to lean into him, accepting the comfort that he offered without openly acknowledging it. "Some of them knew my grandfather," he admitted drily, "I guess they recognise my face."

She fought down the suspicion she felt toward everyone in the store that wasn't Clint, but it took effort. Why would they stare at him just because they had once known his grandfather? Perhaps it was the fact that she hadn't grown up within a family or experienced the dynamics of a small town in the American Midwest that set her on edge and made her feel the scrutiny of these strangers so keenly. "Guess he must have been a pretty popular guy," she commented.

He gave her some privacy in the drug store to pick out whatever personal items she might need, but he always stayed within her field of sight, even while he spoke to the cashier who had caught him the second he stepped inside asking him if he was Frank Barton's boy and wondering how he was doing. She felt calmer under the weight of his gaze, braver. Just knowing that he could, and would, be there in an instant if he picked up one flicker of unease on her part made her feel safe. Preoccupied by the choice of shower scrubs available and contemplating the purchase of sunscreen and further lotion to treat her existing sunburn, which had now begun to lose some of its heat and develop into something that could almost be considered a tan, she didn't notice the man until he brushed up against her.

Taking a step back, she stumbled over an automatic apology before she even looked up into his face. His lip curled into a sneer, as if he was about to yell at her and then, when he took in her features, he stopped and he leered at her openly. Her flesh crawled and nausea churned in the pit of her stomach. She had to get away from him. Instinct demanded that she move but her feet seemed stuck to the floor. He was tall, much taller than her and his eyes were cold when he looked at her. His body moved with hers, crowding her as his eyes travelled over her, taking in everything from knee to face and back again.

"Well ain't you a pretty thing?" he drawled, tracking her every movement with those eyes. Natasha rarely felt true fear, it had been conditioned out of her years ago, but the way he looked at her made her feel vulnerable. Something inside, though healing, was still fragile and vulnerable to men like this one. She had a sense that he was the kind of man who enjoyed terrorising women and she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cower. No matter how fast her heart raced, she would not show him her fear. "How come I ain't seen you round here before?"

Ignoring him, she moved to step around him but he wouldn't let her. His hand shot out and grabbed her arm, digging into her skin painfully. Fear sizzled along her nerves, pain turning to panic which in turn became anger. The urge to drop the basket and slam the heel of her hand up into his nose was difficult to ignore. With every second that he maintained his grip on her arm, she could feel her control slipping away from her.

"Let me go," she exclaimed coldly, fixing him with a glare that could usually freeze most men in place. It didn't seem to work on him. Shrugging out of his grip, she took a step back and glanced over her shoulder, assessing the surroundings in case she had to use force. What she saw was Clint moving toward them, his mouth set in a thin angry line. She tracked his movements as he crossed the room like an animal, all sleek stride and latent power and then he was beside her once again, steering her away from her harasser and angling his own body between them.

"Did you find everything you wanted?" he asked, effectively cutting out the man behind him, giving him his back as though he was of no consequence. She knew what he was really asking her, was she okay? She nodded, regaining her equilibrium as she threw the first products that came to hand into the basket and turned toward the counter. They were the centre of attention again, she was the centre of attention. Adrenaline flooded through her system, leaving her with the desperate urge to run. Her fear was not something she shied away from, she had long ago learned to embrace it. Fear had been an essential building block in her evolution from young girl in the Red Room to who and what she was now, it had helped her to survive.

"Hey we were talkin'," the guy growled, taking a menacing step after them as they moved away. Clint didn't miss a step, placing the fingertips of one hand very lightly against the small of her back in a show of ownership, he guided her away and towards the cashier. "I said we were talkin'! Hey sweetheart, when you get tired of slumming it with the pretty boy and you want a real man..."

Clint reacted but she reacted faster, tracking his movements through the tension she could feel singing through his fingers where they rested against her lower back. As he turned, ready to take the guys head off, she turned with him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. Feeling the way in which he tensed, the way his lungs expanded with every breath and his heart pounded, she knew that he was not quite as calm as he had let on. Though she didn't understand the depths of his anger, she knew that it came only from his desire to keep her from harm. She wouldn't, however, let him get himself into trouble for her, not when she was essentially okay, a little shaken but certainly not hurt in any way that mattered. "Don't Clint," she exclaimed quietly, hoping that he would see the message she was trying to give in her eyes when he looked at her, "you'd only be giving him what he wants."

It took a second before she felt the anger ease out of his muscles. He eased back, once again guiding her to safety on the other side of his body from the jerk in the wife-beater. She didn't need his protection and he knew it, but she appreciated the gesture. Most men couldn't accept the reality of a strong woman, if she had put the guy on his back in front of witnesses there would have been hell to pay. Small town rules. "Back off, she's with me," Clint growled, glaring over his shoulder with all the menace of a protective lover. Sometimes she forgot just how good an actor Clint could be, had she not known better she too could have believed his act herself.


	11. Chapter 11

The two days following their trip into town passed quietly with days spent walking in the forest and evenings spent in easy company on the porch. With every day that passed them by, he could see the difference in her, she was gradually regaining her sense of self, healing both inside and out. Although her appetite still came and went, she was eating enough to regain some of the weight that she had dropped so suddenly, which meant that her clothes fit better and her hip bones no longer stood out quite as sharply as they had a few days ago.

He had devised a routine of exercises that would help her to rebuild her strength and stamina without impeding her healing, taught her the basics of hunting and generally made sure that the environment was as calm as it could be. It had been three nights since her last nightmare and she seemed calmer, no longer hyper-aware of their surroundings at all times of day and night. Time and distance had worked wonders on her, but they both knew that they couldn't stay at the cabin forever, in three days she had to report to medical so that they could assess her recovery.

Standing on the porch, coffee cup in hand, he watched her out in the meadow as she twisted and tumbled in the long grass, throwing kicks and punches into the air at imaginary opponents, a hurricane of movement that threatened to bring his carefully constructed house of cards crashing to the ground. He couldn't breathe when he watched her, he'd never learned how. Usually he would be there, at the centre of that whirlwind, the person at the other end of those kicks, the man who helped her to hone that lethal grace and precision, but that morning he was just a spectator and she took his breath away. Even knowing that she was not at one hundred percent, it was difficult to imagine anything that stood in her path stopping her.

She turned her head towards him, as if she could sense his presence and he forgot how to breathe. She was too beautiful amid the lush green of the meadow, among the wild flowers, her hair a brilliant, vibrant red and her skin showing the first hints of a developing summer tan after days out in the open. He had never seen a more enchanting sight than the one that faced him now. In another life Natasha could have belonged to the country, she had the charm and the beauty for it, but life had had other plans for her, for both of them.

"Feel like helping me out with something?" she called, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun as she continued to watch him. Knowing that whatever she wanted help with would most likely end up with him out in the sun and working up a sweat, he retreated into the cabin to change into more appropriate clothing for a workout. Experience had taught him that even the most relaxed workouts with Natasha could be a gruelling affair, it had something to do with what had happened to her back in Russia, and made her a tricky sparring partner. They were always trying to get the upper hand over one another, evenly matched in almost all respects but for her enhanced endurance and ability to twist out of almost any hold he managed to get her into.

They spent over an hour wrestling in the grass, bodies working with and against one another as she perfected techniques for reversing various holds. He didn't comment on the fact that almost all the holds she insisted he put her into involved positions that gave an attacker a physical advantage, preferring to see her work out her issues that way and not through a relentless punishment of her own body. Surging to her feet she upped the pace, throwing blows at him, forcing him to think fast as they sparred. He pushed her as far as he dared in her current condition and she met him stroke for stroke, strike for block, matching him as she always had. It didn't take long for laughter to bubble out of her, the exhilaration of the fight bringing them both to what they did best and where they were most comfortable.

Eventually, when she was done sparring with him, she resumed the grappling that had started their session. Positioning his hands where she wanted them and talking him through her thoughts on how to break free. Her instinct for combat was amazing, a response to years of training and too many near death encounters to count. She was, however, slowly driving him insane. Holding her body so close to his own, feeling the brush of her skin as she moved against him, the way she pulled him so intimately against her as she wrapped her legs around his waist and countered his hold on her, made him inescapably aware of how her body fit against his own. As she locked her legs around him and yanked him off-balance, pulling him down on top of her, he couldn't miss the way her eyes dilated, the slight hitch in her breathing and the clenching of her pelvic muscles as she gripped him tightly.

They lay out in the sun, side by side, for most of the afternoon. Relaxing in the wake of their exertions, talking and reminiscing about old times and past missions that they had shared, her body close enough to his that their skin brushed each time one of them moved. He saw the moment that her eyes clouded over though, the slight change in her posture as her thoughts turned to the future.

"I don't know if you did the right thing bringing me here Clint," she admitted, turning those stunning eyes his way.

"Why is that?" he asked, despite believing that he already knew the answer. She had been calmer there with him than she could have been almost anywhere else, he was sure of it, which meant that her sudden change of mood could only be related to one thing.

She sighed, rolling onto her front and propping herself up on one elbow so that she could pick at the grass. "Because I have to go back there in a couple of days and this is all going to fade into nothing but a distant dream," she admitted. "Here I can forget about what happened to me, I can focus on just breathing, feel the weight of my bones and just be me. When I go back to SHIELD and they start prodding me for answers, asking questions that I don't want to answer, it's going to be like these days never existed."

He measured the weight of her words and rolled to his side so that he faced her. "You do know that you won't be going back alone right?"

"Doesn't matter, you can't protect me from the way they'll all look at me. There were too many agents on the scene so the rumours would have started almost as soon as we got back to headquarters. We've been gone for over a week, I'd be surprised if there's a single agent that hasn't heard something about what happened to me out there." She huffed out a breath and glanced at him. "This kind of thing makes people pity you, it makes them look at you as a victim."

Acting on impulse, he reached out and took her chin between his fingers, turning her face back towards him, making sure that her eyes met his before he spoke. "Natasha, anyone who looks at you like a victim is an idiot," he told her, "you aren't a victim, you're a warrior and above all else you are a survivor."

Leaning in,she planted a soft kiss on his forehead, a thank you, an understanding. He saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes before she locked her emotions away, but he could hear it in her voice when she spoke again. "How is it you always know exactly the right thing to say?" she asked gently, settling against him in the long grass, head resting on his shoulder. He held her, saying nothing, just staring up at the sky and quietly turning over a plan that had begun to form in the back of his mind, a plan that would possibly help her to get some closure on this episode and would prove beyond all doubt to anyone watching her that the Black Widow was still as ruthless and deadly as she had always been.


	12. Chapter 12

It was their last day at the cabin before they would return to base for her medical assessment and Natasha found herself more restless than she had been in days. Waking at dawn, wrapped in the safety and warmth of Clint's arms, she had allowed herself to consider what the outcome of the exam might be and suppressed a shudder when she thought of what was to come.

Medical facilities were high on her list of places to avoid, given her inherent dislike of doctors and their sometimes highly invasive medical procedures. Having been part of a government science project, Natasha had spent much of her adolescence in various procedure rooms and medical suites, surrounded by white tiles, illuminated x-ray images and surgical steel, lying paralysed on a table while needles were pushed into her veins in the name of science. When they had taken her to the infirmary after Clint rescued her, the grip of his hand in hers was the only thing that got her through the examination.

Troubled by memories, she disentangled herself from his embrace and moved toward the door. Clint rolled into the space she had left, burying his face in the pillows without waking. She was glad. As grateful as she was for all he'd done for her, Natasha needed a little time on her own to prepare herself for the inevitable questions that would be asked. After visiting the bathroom, she headed into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, allowing the familiar smell to comfort her at a time when the rest of her senses seemed to be completely abandoning her. She took her coffee out onto the porch, collecting a book from the nook in the living room and taking that along too; still dressed in her pyjamas she sank into the rocking chair and watched the sunrise.

During their days here she had found her footing once more, helped by Clint's apparently instinctive ability to know exactly what she needed before he knew it herself. Broken though she had been in those early days, she was not a fool, he had saved her in more ways than just carrying her out of that nightmare. Clint had brought her to the only place he could call his own, shared everything he had with her and expected nothing from her in return. Everything that had happened here had been about her; her recovery, her well-being, her needs. Natasha Romanoff had never had another person in her life who would make such selfless sacrifices for her, he was the only true friend she'd ever had and she loved him for it.

They hadn't talked about what had happened to her, not really, but she knew that he knew all of it. They had never needed words to communicate with one another. Though the finer details remained locked away inside her, he had found her barely conscious, seen the room in which she had been held, and those images were probably burned into his brain, just as the way she had gained those injuries was permanently scorched into hers. The thing was, as painful and traumatic as it had been, Natasha was already starting to compartmentalise the event, filing it away in a place she seldom visited. She had survived those men. She had survived that room. She would endure.

If everyone could behave around her the way he did, not treating her like a piece of glass that was about to shatter into a thousand pieces, she would be fine but it was unlikely. If she could keep Clint at her side a while longer, she would find the backbone that had kept her standing through worse than this inside her once more.

Taking advantage of the solitude, she set aside her empty mug and skipped down the steps, enjoying the feel of the dew covered grass beneath her bare feet and wondering when she had last stopped to enjoy such simple pleasures. She stretched out her muscles carefully, her body finding comfort in the familiar movements, and began the first of three sets of tai chi forms that she had promised herself she would practise that day. As she focused on her breath, the tranquillity that she could almost wrap around her there, she felt the stress ebb away to nothing.

A doe had been grazing at the edge of the meadow for some time, unperturbed by the presence of the red-headed woman by the porch, but now her elegant head flew up in alarm, ears twitching. Sounds emerged from the woods, drawing Natasha away from her thoughts and sharpening her attention on the trees at the far side of the clearing. She'd been at the cabin long enough to recognise most of the sounds of the forest and the sounds she heard now, carrying on the still, dawn air were human sounds. The part of her that was the Black Widow, the predator in her, woke in a rush as she moved to the tree line, concealing herself while she waited to see who was trespassing on Clint's land.

The man who stepped out of the trees was one that she would have known anywhere. Heavy footed and intent on bringing down the deer that watched him with agitation, he moved out into the open. At any moment the deer would bolt and he would open fire with the rifle that he had braced against his shoulder, even from a distance of more than a hundred metres she could see that his grip on the firearm was sloppy, the trajectory off if he was aiming for a quick and efficient kill, but Natasha suspected that his intention was to cause pain and prolong his own enjoyment of the hunt. Once she was injured the doe wouldn't get far and he would be able to track her more easily. She didn't need to see this.

As she moved, intending to head back toward the cabin, his head swivelled towards her, eyes narrowing a moment as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. She saw the flash of interest in his eyes as he took in her attire and concluded that she was alone. The look in his eye might have frightened her a few days earlier when she was still vulnerable, but at that moment he instilled nothing but rage in her. The forgotten deer fled, bounding gracefully across the open space to the shelter of the trees on the other side of the clearing while Natasha and the hunter remained frozen, gazes locked, predator and prey. It was unfortunate that he was misguided as to which role he was playing.

"So this is where you bin hidin'," he remarked as he moved closer, rifle partially lowered as if trying to put her at ease. "Heard a rumour that your man was a relative of old Frank who used to own this place, didn't put no stock in it though."

Natasha said nothing, watching his approach, sizing him up for signs of weakness. He was a big man, he had more than a foot and easily a hundred pounds on her, but she stood her ground. If he was hoping to frighten her, he was going to be disappointed. She'd faced horrors and survived, she'd tangled with the Hulk and survived, the guy in front of her was nothing compared with that.

"This is private property," she told him calmly. "You should leave."

He snorted, glanced toward the cabin as if to check that Clint hadn't wandered out onto the porch in the seconds since he had caught sight of her. "Shouldn't be out in the woods alone," he smirked, "all kindsa animals in the forest..." He stepped closer, invading her personal space, crowding her as he had in the drug store and she let him. One hand trailed down the exposed skin of her arm from shoulder to elbow, his eyes roving over her body with barely contained hunger. By force of will, she held back the urge to put him on his ass on the ground. _Not yet, let him get a little closer._ "Hate to see a pretty thing like you get hurt."

Natasha allowed herself to look up at him then, but she knew from the sudden unease in his eyes that he didn't find what he was expecting to see there. "Don't worry," she reassured him, "I'm not the one who's going to get hurt."

It was the work of a moment or two to incapacitate him. She spun, lashing out with a bare footed kick to knock the rifle away from him. A quick blow to the throat and a sharp knee to the groin brought him to his knees and from there it was easy to capitalise on his surprise and force him face first to the forest floor, using a sharp punch to the temple and a variation of a move that Clint had helped her to perfect in recent days. Natasha pinned his arms behind him, using her body weight to keep him in place while she searched the pockets of his hunting vest, lecturing him all the while on how to treat a woman. Adding insult to injury, she used his own rope to tie his hands behind his back, looping the loose end around his neck to give her more control over him as she hauled him to his feet and marched him to the trunk of a nearby tree.

"There's something out here you should see," she announced from the bedroom doorway. Clint opened his eyes and looked at her, then at the face of his watch, and then back at her again.

"Can it wait?" he asked groggily, forcing himself with obvious effort into a sitting position. He scratched the back of his head and yawned. "I could use some coffee before you spring any surprises on me."

Something about the smile she offered him must have told him that this was something that could wait but probably shouldn't, because he was out of bed, dressed and following her outside a couple of minutes later.

"Remember that guy from the drug store the other day?" she asked. He nodded. "Well he showed up here a little while ago, seems that I was a more appealing prospect for the days hunt than the doe he was about to take down out here..."

Clint's eyes flicked to her face, checking in and finding her not only safe but in good spirits, then they darkened as he considered the possibilities. "You're okay?" he asked, obviously referring to her near panic attack the first time she had met him.

"Oh _I'm _fine..." she replied, stopping in front of the tree trunk where she had left the hunter bound and turning to watch Clint's expression as he took in her handy work. His face was swelling, an impressive bruise already beginning to form and his throat didn't look like it was faring much better. Around the gag in his mouth, his words were unintelligible which was probably for the best if they wanted him to survive this meeting. Clint's eyes showed approval as he took the scene in but beneath it she could see that he was rattled by the thought that she could have been attacked and he might have slept though it. "I think he'll remember next time he ventures out this way that this is private property," she told him sweetly, "and that women should be treated with respect."

After Clint had forced their uninvited guest into the truck and driven him back to town, Natasha returned to the cabin and went to the bathroom. Before the small mirror that made up the medicine cabinet door, she studied her reflection. Her hands were steady, barely shaking, her skin was pale, her eyes calm. "Maybe," she said aloud, listening for any sign of a tremor in her voice, "maybe I am ready to face this medical tomorrow after all."


	13. Chapter 13

_**A.N -** Just wanted to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to all who have read, reviewed or stuck with this story so far. This chapter was inspired by_

_Lastavica whose enthusiasm for porch scenes is contagious - hope you like it!_

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Long after Natasha had gone inside, he lingered on the porch enjoying the evening air. Unusually however, he found that he couldn't relax entirely. Although she had seemed calm enough and had handled their uninvited guest perfectly, Clint hadn't been able to settle since the moment he set eyes on Danny Adams gagged with his own shirt and tied to that tree trunk. Just seeing the man there, after the way he had acted around Natasha a few days earlier, had made his protective instincts rear up and snarl. How he had got the idiot back into town without killing him was still a mystery to him but he was quietly confident that the guy would never set foot on his property again.

Taking a long swallow of his beer, he listened to the sound of the wolves, their keening howls carrying on the still air, haunting, beautiful. Their time together here was over, the quiet domesticity that had come in the wake of the worst of Natasha's nightmares would end the moment they both climbed into the truck and drove back toward the airstrip. He would miss it. Tomorrow they would leave and the next chapter in Natasha's recovery would begin, a chapter that would no longer belong exclusively to the two of them but to a host of other people employed to get one of the agency's best assets back into the field as soon as she was well enough.

After dinner they had built up a fire in one of the old barrels that he kept out back of the property and toasted marshmallows while they drank beer and watched the sunset. It had been his idea, facilitated by his unexpected trip into town, a trip which had also allowed him to buy extra ingredients to make her favourite dinner as a consolation for the fact that they had to leave. He had wanted to make the night as perfect as he could since they had no way of knowing what the coming days would bring.

Quietly, he moved toward the edge of the porch, his bare feet making almost no sound on the floorboards. He had a specific destination in mind, a particular post into which a history of his family was carved, meaningless to anyone who looked unless they knew what the markings there represented. Tracing his fingertips reverently over the shapes, he allowed himself to remember the words that his grandfather had given him as a boy, words that had stayed with him his entire life. He crouched down and looked at the two sets of initials that were carved into the wood, aged and worn but still readable. The letters represented his grandfather and grandmother and the initials of his grandfathers parents, a legacy of the relationships that had meant most to the men in the Barton family.

Having never taken a woman out to the cabin, he had never contemplated adding his own initials to the list. Tonight he knew that the time had come for him to take his place among his ancestors and admit, even if it was only to himself, the wolves and the darkening sky, that no other initials would ever be as entwined with his own as hers. It was a ritual, a quiet magic, taking his pocket knife and chiseling the letters into the aged wood, splitting the grain with careful, precise movements, the formation of a lasting memorial to his feelings for the only woman who had ever made him hunger for a normal life.

Sitting back on his heels, he admired his handy work, tracing his fingers over the letters. This cabin was now as much hers as it was his. No matter where life took them, or whether they were in contact or not, he couldn't imagine ever bringing another woman there. If she were to walk out of his life tomorrow he would always think of the cabin as their place.

He lifted his beer, inclined it toward the inscribed post in deference to his grandfather, and took a sip. As he rose, he became aware of a presence at the other end of the porch and found her watching him, green eyes filled with a soft curiosity. Damn it, he had put his heart out there and she had caught him doing it. She was dressed for bed and had thrown one of the heavy woollen blankets from the closet around her shoulders to stave off the chill that he hadn't noticed. In that respect they were opposites, Natasha was often cold, particularly since her time in captivity, where he always ran hotter than average.

Slowly, she approached, crouching in the space he had just vacated so that she could see the letters more clearly. "This is your grandfather?" she asked, tracing the initials above the freshly carved letters that represented them. He nodded silently. "And this?"

"My grandmother," he explained, "the letters above them are his parents. It's sort of a family tradition I guess..."

She rose gracefully to her feet, keeping her eyes on the letters, face unreadable. "I'm honoured," she exclaimed softly after a few seconds.

Compelled to explain himself, he struggled to find a way to explain his actions that wouldn't make her feel awkward. "My grandfather told me that the men in the family always carved the initials of the person who meant most to them into the cabin, as a way of recording a moment for future generations..." he stopped when she turned her face toward his, a gentle smile pulling at the corner of her lips.

"I'm going to hug you now," she told him, stepping in close and wrapping her arms around him, enfolding him in the blanket as well as her embrace. It was exactly the last thing that he had expected her to do but he recovered quickly and returned her embrace, enjoying the feeling of her body up against his own. She curved herself into him, turning her mouth up to his, allowing him a moment to pull away before she closed the distance between their mouths and brushed his lips with hers. It was the briefest of touches but the fact that she willingly offered it made it more precious to him. "Thank you," she murmured, "for everything."

Still holding her gently, he let her rest her head against his shoulder. "You're the only person I've ever brought out here," he told her, "and after all we've been through together it seemed appropriate."

"It's lovely," she sighed, "and if I had a place where my family marked the names of those who meant most to us, then your name would be next to mine."

They stayed out on the porch for a while longer, watching the sky fade from blue to black, both of them sinking into the rocking chair, Natasha sitting on his lap, his arms around her. The quiet between them was comfortable, as was their embrace, a quiet way of reaffirming the bond that they had shared since the day he spared her life and offered her a new life. While the wolves moved through the meadow with their pups, the alpha keeping a watch on the couple on the porch, Clint committed the moment to memory, knowing that once they were back in the real world these moments would stop.

She fell asleep in his arms, her head tucked into his shoulder while he stared up at the stars and barely stirred as he carried her to bed, only moving to roll into the warmth of his body when he slipped between the sheets beside her. It was going to be hard getting used to sleeping without her after the last couple of weeks, he realised, somewhere along the way it had become second nature for both of them to seek the comfort of the other during the night. Wrapping himself around her one last time, he took in the peaceful expression she wore, the way her body curled into his and he waited without knowing what he waited for. Lulled by the sound of her breathing, he eventually gave in and allowed sleep to claim him.


	14. Chapter 14

**A.N: **_Sorry Guys, I know the updates are slowing down a bit. I'm insanely busy with work right now so it's taking me a bit longer than I'd like to get the chapters sorted. Please be patient and I'll update as often as I can. _

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The day was as bad as she had expected in some respects and not as bad in others. From the moment they had left the cabin that morning, she had fought to keep a lid on the nervous tension that sang through every nerve and while he was at her side she managed reasonably well, but he wouldn't be able to stay with her all day and she was worried about how she would react when he was no longer at her side.

During the flight, Clint kept contact with her at all times, reassuring her with his knee against her own or his shoulder leaning into hers as he pointed out something that anyone else might have found interesting. He wasn't showing her geographical landmarks though, he was making sure that she knew he was there, subtle contact that could not be reported to anyone as 'fraternisation'. She absorbed the warmth and strength that he offered her, dreading the moment that they would be separated and knowing that it would come too soon.

They were waiting for her when she and Clint climbed out of the helicopter, Fury and Hill, both standing at the edge of the airfield, hands behind their backs, postures perfect. Natasha had never been intimidated by either of the agents in front of her and she still wasn't, but the sight of them made her feel nauseous. This was where the real test of her recovery would take place, her physical fitness and mental stability assessed by people who didn't have the first idea who she really was or how she worked, people who would scrape away at her self-control until she reacted in a way that they could assign to a classification on a response sheet.

The first hour on base was absolutely fine and involved a lengthy meeting with Fury and Hill. They met behind the closed doors of the small conference room that adjoined the Director's office, away from the speculative gazes of the other agents who had obviously heard that the Widow and the Hawk were back from wherever they had been. Having spent hours in that particular room, receiving assignments and debriefing after missions, Natasha felt reasonably comfortable there. There was nothing that threatened her composure, both Fury and Hill going out of their way to welcome her back and make her feel comfortable. It wouldn't last.

The doctor that greeted her at the medical bay, Dr Carter, was female. Natasha didn't believe for a second that was a coincidence. She also didn't think it was a coincidence that all non-essential and male staff appeared to have been removed from the facility for the duration of her physical. None of those considerations stopped her skin from crawling when she stepped foot in the exam room though, or alleviated the anxiety that had spiked in her the moment that Hill had separated her from Clint to take her there. Separating them was as much a test as getting through the examination, perhaps they needed to know that she could face things on her own, or maybe it was an extension of the no men policy which seemed to have been laid down.

The staff were pleasant, professional and perfectly competent, that didn't change the inherent distrust she felt toward them. They took her blood pressure, examined her limbs and the sites of her injuries and made notes about how they were healing up, they asked her about her diet and her activity during her absence. Non-invasive questions and procedures that were obviously meant to put her at ease. Then the doctor produced a tourniquet and announced that she was going to take some blood.

At the sight of the needle, Natasha felt her heart rate spike, body gearing up for a fight or flight response that had her gripping the sides of the bed hard enough to bruise her palms. She got through it though, forcing her fingers to uncoil and willing herself to focus on her breathing, imagining herself back at the cabin and in the meadow with the sun on her skin. It helped but she was still relieved when it was over and they pulled the needle from her vein.

She made it through the MRI and the x-rays too, convincing herself that she could survive anything they threw at her. She wanted to believe it too, but when the doctor announced that she was going to perform an internal examination, her calm once again evaporated.

"Is that really necessary?" she asked, surprised by how level her own voice was. It wasn't like she had a problem with that particular type of examination, she went through one every year as part of her physical and knew that they were just part of the process, but more that she just didn't do well with examinations in general. She hadn't gone to such lengths to hide what had happened to her, both recently and in the distant past, just to allow it to all come out now. She didn't know whether there would be scarring from her captivity, or any other signs of what had been done to her, but the amount of bleeding she'd endured afterwards suggested that there might be.

"It's just procedure Agent Romanoff," the doctor replied evenly, pulling on a fresh pair of surgical gloves, "but this is more about assessing what I can do to make sure you heal fully and correctly." She met the level stare of Doctor Carter's brown eyes and found no emotion behind the words. Natasha breathed deeply, concluding that the woman had assessed her correctly and known that a show of sympathy would have been more likely to make her patient shut down entirely.

She had made it through the rest, she would get through this. There was still the problem of the information leaking out once it was in her medical notes though. "And the results of the exam..."

The doctor seemed to know where she was headed with her line of enquiry. "Stay in a secure file which can only be accessed in case of emergency," she explained, "I won't put anything except the medical facts in your general medical file."

Natasha nodded, glad for the first time that Clint was not in the room with her. She laid herself bare to him in a great many ways but some things were best kept private and an exam of this nature was definitely one of them. She hadn't allowed herself to dwell on the realities of what had happened to her in that bunker. She had been so caught up in the drama of her captivity that she hadn't thought about any possible repercussions. _Oh God, please don't let there be any repercussions..._

As the doctor moved closer, Natasha reached out and grabbed her wrist. "You've read my file right, so you know I don't deal well with this stuff?" Forcing herself to lie back on the bed and raise her knees up, she held the doctor's eyes and swallowed back her fear at what was to come, what the woman might find and what it might mean for her future.

"I could sedate you, it would make this easier for you," the doctor offered, no judgement in her eyes, nothing in her voice to suggest that she thought less of the woman before her.

With a shake of her head, she bit down on her lip and willed her muscles to relax. "No drugs. Just make it quick."

Despite her grip, which must have been painfully tight, the doctor didn't pull away, just met Natasha's eyes and offered her a small nod of acknowledgement. "Focus on your breathing and know that I'll get you through this as quickly and painlessly as possible."

Once the examination was over and she was back in her own clothing and not the scratchy paper gown that she had worn on the table, she found that she felt better. From the edge of the bed she watched Carter labelling up the blood samples and swabs that had been taken, noting that they were only marked with a number rather than an ID. She wouldn't go as far as to say that she liked the woman, but Natasha sure that this particular doctors way was what had got her through the afternoon. Over an hour and a half had passed since she had stepped into the room, it felt like a day, maybe a century, but she had survived it.

"Something on your mind Agent?" Carter asked, without glancing up from what she was doing. It was slightly reassuring that the woman could track her surroundings while still concentrating on what she was doing. Competency like that went a long way toward making a patient feel like a medic was trustworthy.

"Tell me," Natasha demanded. "I need to know what you found."

Later in the afternoon, after Hill had escorted her back to her quarters and left her to rest a while, Natasha slipped out in search of Clint. It didn't take long to learn where he wasn't, which was in his own quarters, with Fury or in the gym but she had a suspicion where she should look next.

She found him at the range, firing arrow after arrow at a target, the muscles of his arms bunching and releasing with each draw of the string and discharge of the arrow. She lost momentum for a moment, caught up in the controlled savagery of his movements and the speed with which he completed each repetition. Caught on the periphery, tangled in the net of her emotions, she stalled out, stopping far enough away that she wouldn't disturb him, but too far away to speak to him and break the silence that had chewed at her for the last hour.

When he turned toward her, she realised that she had hesitated too long. Rather than her finding him, he had found her. His gaze grounded her, pulling her out of the thoughts that circled within her and back into her own body. Without conscious effort her feet carried her toward him, stopping when she reached his side. Neither of them spoke as he loosed the arrow he had drawn before he saw her, sending it flying straight and true into the centre of the target. He lowered the bow silently, leaning it carefully against the wall. "Everything okay?" he asked, finally breaking the silence.

"I'll live," she replied. "The doctor was very thorough, she did just about every test imaginable." She knew that she didn't imagine the slight movement of his muscles when she mentioned that the doctor had been a woman. He had known how worried she was about the medical and she had seen his reaction when Fury and Hill had separated them to take her down to the infirmary.

"So what happens now?" he asked. His gaze was too intent, difficult to hold in her current shaky state. Under the weight of those eyes, she feared she would shatter apart, spilling her fears and her doubts across the floor to fill the space between them. Abruptly she wanted to be in his arms, up against his chest the way she had been just the night before on the porch, but she pushed the thought away. Natasha Romanoff was not the kind of woman who drew her strength from others, she took her care of herself and right now she needed to draw on her own well so that she could rebuild herself.

"I have an appointment with the therapist tomorrow afternoon."

Clint offered her a reassuring smile, "it's standard procedure for agents injured in the line of duty."

He had been made to see someone after the events in New York, an ultimately pointless exercise which had led to him taking a leave of absence so that he could sort out his own emotional baggage. She didn't want to talk to anyone about what had happened to her, giving her pain airtime only allowed it to slice into her over and over again. She would not allow herself to be a victim in anyone's eyes. If she couldn't find words to explain it to the one person in the world she trusted with everything how did they imagine she would talk to a stranger?

"So what did Fury want to talk to you about while I was off being pushed and prodded in medical?" she asked, turning the conversation away from what had happened to her during the day and what was waiting for her tomorrow.

His smile was genuine, if a little predatory. "He has a new mission that we wanted me to look at," he explained, picking up the bow again and turning toward the exit. He caught her elbow as he passed, turning her and moving her along at his side. Natasha felt her stomach clench at the thought of him being sent away on a mission while she was stuck there under the watchful eye of a department shrink. She might worry that she was leaning on him too much but she wasn't ready to be without him. "It's quite an interesting target and it's a job that I think you'll enjoy working on once you've been cleared for duty. He's getting some more intel for me so that I can see what might be involved."

He had her attention now and he knew it.

"Do I get to know the target?" she asked, barely noticing as he steered her toward the cafeteria.

He nodded, taking note of the gazes that lingered on them a little too long as they walked along the hallway, gazes that she had been pointedly ignoring. "I'll tell you everything once I have the details," he promised, "but right now, it's time for us to get something to eat."

Despite the hunger that clawed at her gut, she didn't want to go into the cafeteria and sit among so many other agents who would all be wondering what was going on with her. The nausea churned inside her once again and her heart rate picked up, hammering against her ribs. The appetite that she had so recently regained seemed more like a curse than a blessing. "Clint..." she slowed, stalling once again. He looked at her expectantly. "I can't..."

"Sure you can," he told her, tone gentle but undeniably firm. He was not going to budge on this, she knew it. "Sooner or later you'll have to do it and I'm going to be right there beside you the entire time. Just focus on me and ignore everyone else, eat enough to convince them and I'll even make a late night snack run later if you're hungry."

"But..."

"They'll be watching remember," he told her seriously, "we need to show them that you're back to your best so that they'll sign you off, give us a mission and then we can get the hell out of here."

_Well, when he put it like that... _Natasha couldn't argue with the logic. As usual he was right, she needed to show anyone who was watching that she was still the same woman she had always been. Locking away her insecurities, she straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. "If you're making a snack run later it better include ice cream," she growled, stepping into the crowded room.

"Anything you want Nat," he replied, staying close as she wound her way between tables and headed toward the queue, "as long as it isn't fresh venison, the hunting around here isn't exactly great."


	15. Chapter 15

**A.N: **_Still stowed off with work but I was running a fever last night and couldn't sleep so this helped me pass the time. If it's a little disjointed I'm blaming the sleep deprivation! As always I'd love to know what you think..._

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Time once again moved strangely around her, the passing hours slowing down to a torturous crawl as she waited for her therapists appointment. She hadn't slept well, finding herself up and pacing the confines of her room in the small hours, exhausted and yet unable to sleep for the constant turning of her thoughts. She was also trying to convince herself that the inability to sleep had nothing to do with the fact Clint wasn't in the bed beside her.

She had passed most of the day alone, aware that Clint would be busy with the assignment that Fury had given him the day before. He had told her that he was available if she needed him but she was loath to disturb him without good reason. Feeling a little restless and edgy about the upcoming appointment and the possible test results from her physical the day before, were not good enough reasons, even if she had spent most of the night torturing herself over the outcome.

The thought that the days spent in that airless basement could still have the power to change her life was just too cruel to contemplate and yet her mind refused to focus on anything else. She wasn't too concerned about being pregnant, reasoning that her body had been through too much to sustain it, but there was still the possibility of infection or the reality of lasting damage caused by internal injuries. The doctor has reassured her as best she could, finding nothing obvious during her examination but the results of the tests wouldn't be in for another day at least, since Carter had insisted that she would process them herself in order to keep the results strictly confidential.

Two o' clock eventually arrived and Natasha found herself sitting in the small private waiting room outside the therapists office with Maria Hill on one side of her. At first she had been convinced that Fury's second in command had only arrived at the door of her quarters to make sure that she attended the appointment, but the longer she sat there, trying awkwardly to make conversation, the more Natasha began to suspect that this was her version of a genuine show of support. Strangely she found herself glad of it when it became clear that the doctor was running late. It was nice not to have to wait alone.

Dr Mary Heworth was a quietly spoken, middle-aged woman, who welcomed Natasha to her office in a way that immediately set her teeth on edge. Calm, compassionate, she seemed like exactly the sort of person that someone could confide in, so naturally Natasha, who had no wish to talk about her experiences, hated everything she stood for on sight. From the first words out of her mouth, Natasha wanted to be anywhere but under the astute gaze of the woman who took the chair opposite her.

She'd had an aversion to people trying to get into her head since the Red Room so she didn't imagine that it would matter how nice the doctor was, she still wouldn't want to be there. Nothing raised her hackles more than someone, who probably had a whole lot of book learning but no real experience of what they were talking about, attempting to reassure her that they understood where she was coming from, especially when Natasha severely doubted that the good doctor had ever been part of a covert Soviet science project.

"You're resistant to talking about your time in captivity, why is that?" Heworth asked, looking over the top of her glasses, pen poised over the notepad that she had scribbled in for best part of an hour. They were going round in circles and getting nowhere fast.

"There's nothing to talk about," Natasha replied, keeping her voice as level and calm as she could. "It's over, bringing out the past serves no purpose but to give it power over the future."

Scribbling something down on the paper in front of her, the doctor raised an eyebrow. "You don't think that you need to deal with what happened in that basement Agent Romanoff?"

Turning the options over in her mind, Natasha considered the best way to play out the conversation. Since she excelled at turning interrogations to her advantage, she knew that there had to be a way to do the same in this room. As far as she was concerned, she'd been doing a damned fine job of processing the incident without the help of any professionals. With all the traumas in her past the last thing that she needed to do was start talking to a shrink, if the box in which she buried her past horrors was compromised, and the darkness that existed within her brought to the surface, she'd be in therapy for the rest of her life and so most likely would the doctor.

"No offence Doctor but I'm not a fan of people trying to get into my head, my former employers were rather skilled at manipulating my memory and my emotions so forgive me if I'd rather deal with things my own way."

"Talk therapy will help you to process what happened..."

"And just what do you think happened to me?" Natasha asked, turning her gaze toward the woman opposite her. The doctor stiffened slightly, obviously not liking the change in her posture or the tone of her voice.

"You were injured in the line of duty, held hostage and tortured for information..."

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Natasha muttered, interrupting the doctor and drawing the first real response she had seen from the woman since she had walked in the door. She wasn't sure what had changed but there was something in her eyes that made Natasha wonder whether she had been too hasty in her judgement of the woman before her, the woman who held the keys to her getting back out into the field.

"You've been through a trauma Natasha, it doesn't make you weak if you need to take some time out to deal with that." The doctor leaned forward in her seat, setting the notebook aside momentarily. "If I'm reading you right, you're quite skilled at locking away the things that you don't want to think about, an agent with your skill set has to be adept at locking away the elements of the job that are unpalatable to them."

"I have my own way of dealing with this stuff," Natasha agreed calmly, "a way that works for me."

The therapist nodded, then looked her directly in the eye. "How bad did things get in that basement Agent?"

Images lit up the inside of Natasha's skull, flashes of memory, faces, emotions. She saw every indignity that had been inflicted upon her body as if she were a witness to it, once again feeling the harsh grip of cruel hands and seeing the bruises that had been left behind. She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and expected to find them shaking under the onslaught of memory. Steady, calm, just like the beating of her heart and the breath in her lungs. _Well if that wasn't progress..._

"I've survived worse," she replied calmly, meaning every word. She had promised herself when she escaped the Red Room that she would never again be anyone's victim. She had hardened herself, turning her mind and her emotions to steel and locking them away where nobody would ever be able to exploit them. Clint was the only person who had breached that wall and it had taken him a long time to win her trust. He knew her the way he did only because she had found it impossible to keep him at arm's length.

"I should probably tell you that I've seen the photographs of the injuries you sustained."

Natasha took a deep breath, exhaled and laid her cards on the table. "I don't believe in fooling myself, lies serve no purpose. I knew that there was a chance that I could die there, I would have died there if Agent Barton hadn't got me out when he did..."

"It sounds like you were okay with that," Dr Heworth stated quietly.

Natasha met her gaze straight on, never flinching. "I'm not suicidal Doctor," she announced, "nor am I broken. I don't need someone prying around inside my head to help me process this. I don't need someone to hold my hand and tell me everything is going to be okay, what I need is to get back out there with my partner and live my life."

The expression that she saw in the doctor's eyes surprised her, there was something that looked a lot like respect there, along with something speculative. "I think that we can compromise a little here Agent Romanoff," she said after a long moment of silence, "regulations state that we have to meet a minimum of three times before I can discharge you from my care but I will reinstate your training schedule and stipulate that you may come and go as you please. You will still have to meet with me at least twice for a minimum of an hour Agent, but after that, if I feel we've made progress, I will recommend a return to active duty."

"What's the catch?" Natasha asked warily.

"Only that when the time comes that you can no longer lock away the horrors you live with, that you will seek me out and let me help you to deal with them." Extending her hand, the doctor waited expectantly. "I believe that I can help you Agent Romanoff, but not until you are ready to let me."

Natasha got the distinct impression that she surprised them both when she shook hands with the woman. "Deal," she replied, thinking that she would do almost anything to get to her ultimate goal of being fully reinstated and getting back to work. If that meant jumping through a few more hoops to convince everyone that she was stable enough to be in the field then that was what she would do.


	16. Chapter 16

Pacing around his quarters, Barton tried to make sense of the unease he was feeling. Days had passed since Natasha's medical, the routines of being on base swallowing them up and keeping them both busy. Natasha's time was taken up with medical appointments and trips to see the therapist that had been assigned to her, which she didn't seem to mind half as much as Clint had anticipated. Most of Clint's own time was spent training some of Fury's new recruits or working on the mission that he had lined up, a gift to Natasha that would prove beyond all doubt that she was worthy of the legend that had always been attached to her name.

Each morning since her exercise privileges had been reinstated, they had met for a run before breakfast, pushing a little further, a little harder each day as she moved back toward active duty. They ate their meals together and she sometimes came along to his sessions, watching from the sidelines as he worked but never joining in as she continued to feel uncomfortable when she found herself under the scrutiny of other agents, particularly those she didn't know.

She hadn't talked much about the therapy sessions and he respected that but he knew her well enough to know when something was bothering her. All the signs were there, the faraway look in her eyes when she thought he wasn't looking, the dark circles that hung beneath them, the lack of appetite she displayed at meal times and the way she pushed herself ever harder during their workouts. Although it took every ounce of his self-control, he didn't push at her. Years and experience had taught him that sometimes it was best to flush her out and other times it was best to wait until she found the words. She would talk when she was ready. He just had to be patient.

Tonight Natasha had skipped dinner claiming that she had meeting with Hill and would grab something afterwards. "I'm going to try to get an early night," she told him with a smile. They agreed that they would meet in the morning and head down for breakfast together before Clint had taken himself off to the range for some target practice.

The bow that he chose to use was an old friend, perfectly balanced and made specifically for him, the arrows flew time after time to his target, landing exactly where he wanted them. As far as practise went, it was perfect, peaceful, not a single distraction to offer him a challenge, so why was it that he felt so unsettled? Time and again his thoughts circled back to his partner and the way the closeness they had shared at the cabin seemed to be fading away since they had returned to work. It was true that they were being careful to avoid gossip but there was more to her withdrawal than concern about what people might be saying, she wasn't quite herself and often seemed to be somewhere else when she was right at his side.

Natasha Romanoff wasn't the caring sharing type, he knew this, she kept her cards close to her chest and had more skeletons in her closet than just about anyone he had ever met. Forged in a furnace of government science and self-hatred, she had been hammered into the mould of an assassin and manipulated until she no longer trusted her own instincts, until all she had and all she knew was the skill set that had kept her alive. By the time he had been sent to kill her, nobody saw the woman beneath her fearsome reputation and nobody considered that she had more to offer than the death she dealt so efficiently. He had never believed that about her, Clint had always seen the light intermingled in her darkness. Now, after recent events, he was beginning to fear that the darkness would overwhelm her.

The phone rang, startling him from his thoughts. In the early hours of the morning there were only a couple of reasons that someone would feel the need to place a direct call to his quarters, none of them were good.

"Hello?" he exclaimed, snatching the handset from the dock. Nothing, no sound, no words, and then he heard it. Breath hitched at the other end of the line, a sound that he had become intimately familiar with in recent weeks.

"Clint?" her voice was so weak, so broken that if he hadn't known it was her he would have doubted it, but he knew her voice and he would have recognised it anywhere. He had hung up the phone and was moving before his brain registered what he was doing, instinct driving him out the door and along the hallways to find her. He didn't care who might see him as he briskly covered the distance between his room and hers, didn't care what people would say if they saw him banging on her door in the middle of the night, or the conclusions that they would come to if they saw her let him inside. The thoughts and remarks of others meant nothing to him, the only thing that mattered was that she was suffering in some way and she had reached out to him.

She answered the door dressed in a black shirt that he recognised as one of his own and not much else, dark circles painting the skin beneath her eyes and evidence of hastily wiped away tears on her cheeks. It was immediately obvious to him that she hadn't slept in days, exhaustion evident in the haunted look in her eyes and the restless movement of her limbs. Tormented by something that she hadn't been able to voice, she had locked herself away, torturing herself until she reached rock bottom and could do nothing more than brokenly sob his name into the telephone.

"Come in," she murmured, opening the door wide enough to let him pass. She said nothing as he entered the room, just met his gaze with weary green eyes that were filled with more ghosts than he could count.

He surveyed the room, attention drawn to the top of the bureau that stood against the furthest wall. No matter where they went, no matter how long the job, Natasha always had somewhere to write. Her room it seemed was no exception to the rule. He'd never asked what it was that drove her to write in the small hours of the morning, what thoughts poured from her pen onto paper when she was bruised or bleeding or so exhausted that she should have been crawling into bed and collapsing against the pillows as soon as the chance arose. Once she told him, during a rare drunken blow out, that she felt she had to get the poison of their work out before she slept so that she wouldn't be as tormented by the nightmares in her sleep. Tonight there were a dozen or more pages scattered across the desktop, each densely packed with her neat Russian script and beside them stood an almost empty bottle of vodka.

She didn't drink often, and she never drank alone. Sometimes on missions she'd have a couple, sometimes when everything was over she would relax with a beer but vodka was a different scenario entirely for a woman like Natasha, vodka she could drink like water. Vodka was where she turned when she wanted to forget: when her ghosts were howling and her ability to keep them at bay was compromised, the heavy glass bottle with the Cyrillic lettering was an old friend. For Natasha, drunk meant vodka in catastrophic amounts.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, knowing that she would understand what he was really asking. Guilt chewed at him. Nothing had ever undone him the way her tears did. She had tried so hard to show everyone that she was okay that she had run herself into the ground again and she had hidden it so well that he'd had no idea she was in pain. As she closed her eyes trying to stem the flow of tears, she might as well have put her gun to his heart and pulled the trigger.

"I can't sleep," she admitted, "Ever since the medical and the therapy sessions I just can't seem to block the memories as well as I should. Every time I close my eyes it's right there, so much blood, so much pain, just waiting for me. I feel like I'm losing my mind..."

Sleep deprived and spiralling, a frame of mind that he remembered well from the days after New York when Loki still haunted his every waking and sleeping moment. He opened his arms to her. "Come here," he commanded softly. She came to him hesitantly, awkwardly, as if she were unsure of her welcome but as soon as he closed her arms around her she clung to him with a desperation that frightened him.

"I'm scared that I'm not strong enough to get through this Clint," she admitted, keeping her face buried against his chest where he couldn't see her. "What if I'm not strong enough?"

"You are the strongest person I've ever known," he told her honestly, glad that she wasn't looking at him because he was almost sure he would lose his nerve under the weight of her gaze, "all you need is a little sleep. You can do it Nat and if you aren't strong enough right now then you lean on me and I'll bear it for you. I'll be strong enough for both of us until you're ready to stand alone again."

The subtle shift in her posture was enough to have him worried that he had said too much, enough to make him think that she was about to pull away from him. She didn't. Natasha lifted her head, looking up at him with haunted, knowing eyes. The eyes that looked at him were those that had borne the weight of the world and now found the burden was not so heavy with him there. "Stay," she said softly. He nodded his agreement, knowing that there was nowhere else he wanted to be. While Natasha was vulnerable, he would stay no matter the cost.

They ended up on her bunk, his back propped against the headboard and pillows while she curled against his chest. He moved his hand closer to hers, offering it silently. She observed it for a second, then placed hers over it and wrapped her fingers around his own. It didn't take long for her exhaustion to catch up with her. He knew from the slight change in her breathing as she relaxed against him that she would soon be asleep.

"You trust me right Nat?" he asked, stroking her hair soothingly.

Though she didn't life her head or open her eyes, her response was instantaneous, "with my life."

"Then trust me when I tell you that you can get through this."

She was fading, he knew it when she spoke again, the words slurred by sleep. "Can't keep coming to my rescue Barton," she murmured.

Clint smiled at that, he knew very well that Natasha Romanoff didn't need a man to come to her rescue. "I know that you don't need me to rescue you Sweetheart," he told his sleeping partner. Planting a gentle kiss against her forehead and settling as comfortably as he could, he closed his eyes, "but maybe I'm not the one doing the rescuing here."


	17. Chapter 17

**A.N:** _Just a short chapter this time. I want to show what's coming from Natasha's POV so I'm breaking it into two smaller chapters. __This just keeps pulling at my attention - I'm hoping to get the next part up in a couple of days._

_Thank you for all your feedback and reviews, I'm overwhelmed by the response this is getting, especially since I didn't plan for this to be a longer story! _

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He woke to the sound of voices in the hallway outside, already aware that he wasn't in his own bed and that he wasn't alone. He didn't need to open his eyes to know whose body was curled into his own or whose head was resting on his chest, the scent of her had burrowed into his brain during the night meaning that he woke with a very clear idea of where he was.

Still sleeping, Natasha was curled tightly into his body, the tension of the previous night having eased from her features. He didn't want to disturb her but the need to stretch and move around, easing the stiffness in his muscles, had him gently repositioning her against the pillows. From the end of the bed he watched her as he stretched out his arms and shoulders. She had slept relatively peacefully but the dark circles were still there beneath her eyes, probably would be for a few days until she had once again established some sort of sleeping pattern. If he had to be here with her until she was back to her best, he would be - he'd let her down too many times already.

A firm knock on the door disturbed his thoughts, desire to let Natasha sleep a little longer making him move before he had given conscious thought to the time or the fact that the door he was about to open wasn't his own. He didn't consider the possible implications of his impulsive decision until he opened the door and met the surprised expression on Maria Hill's face, an expression that didn't improve when he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him rather than letting her inside.

Her surprise didn't last long enough to throw her off stride for more than a second."What are you doing here?" she asked, recovering quickly.

"If you're looking for Natasha she's sleeping," he replied, folding his arms across his chest, "she hasn't been doing a lot of that lately so I'd suggest that if this isn't of critical importance you let her rest a while longer."

She didn't care for his tone, he could tell by the change in her body language. He didn't care. Unless they had a damned good reason for waking her up, he wasn't letting anyone through the door at his back. "I asked what you were doing here Agent Barton," Hill repeated.

Clint knew what she was thinking, he could see the wheels turning in her head as clearly as if she were made of glass. It was still early, his clothing was sleep rumpled and he was pretty sure that he probably looked as exhausted as he felt, there was one obvious and incorrect conclusion that a senior agent would come to when faced with such evidence. "I'm watching over my partner," he told her, meeting her gaze squarely. He wouldn't back down in the face of her obvious disapproval. Maria Hill might have forgiven him for the events that he had instigated whilst under Loki's control, but she had never forgotten them, and while he had done everything he could to rebuild her trust in him he would not allow her to intimidate him now.

"That would be the responsibility of her doctors Agent," she informed him. "I'd like to see her."

As she moved to push past him, Clint put his body directly in her path, blocking the way into the room. He saw the flash of irritation that passed through her eyes and knew that he would pay for his actions at a later date. Hill glared up at him, but made no move to issue a physical challenge, no doubt aware of the curious glances directed their way as other agents began to make their way down for breakfast or training. Surely she of all people should know that you only barged in on a woman like his partner if you no longer valued the full use of your limbs.

He leaned in, keeping his voice low enough that none of the bystanders would hear what he was saying. "Natasha doesn't need this kind of attention right now," he told her, keeping his tone so reasonable that had there not been witnesses in the hall he was sure that she would have punched him. "She's sleeping," he repeated, "I'll be happy to give her a message when she wakes up or have her come and find you, but so help me God you aren't waking her now."

The look she gave him could have flayed the flesh from his bones but she knew when she was beaten. Natasha had told him that Hill had made a point of trying to be supportive, she could probably appreciate the need for subtlety in a situation like this one. That didn't mean she wouldn't hold a grudge however.

"Tell Agent Romanoff that Dr Carter will come here to discuss her test results with her at 10.30," and with that Hill turned on her heel and stalked off along the corridor. He didn't like the sound of the doctor coming to Natasha to discuss test results, it gave him an ominous feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, but he would pass on the message as he had been asked – just as soon as she woke up.

He was still there when there was more tentative knock on the door a couple of hours later, sitting on the edge of the bed while Natasha hastily tidied away her scribblings and straightened up the room. He knew enough about her behaviour to recognise that the tidying was an avoidance tactic, keeping her hands busy stopped her from dwelling on what was to come.

She admitted the doctor, an athletic looking brunette who was considerably younger than he would have imagined, after the first knock, greeting her with a tight smile. At the doctor's shoulder Hill came into the room, offering a smile to Natasha and an icy glare to Clint. "You're still here," she remarked, hovering by the door, holding it open to keep his exit clear. "You need to leave while they talk."

Clint didn't argue with her, just rose from the bed and moved to leave the room. He had no interest in causing a scene that might make this meeting between doctor and patient any more difficult than it had to be. He would head back to his own quarters, grab a shower and something to eat and then catch up with Natasha later. As he passed her, he brushed his partner's hand with his own, drawing her gaze up to his so that he could offer her all the reassurance he could give without words. He caught the spiralling panic in her before it became evident to the women in the room, it was in her eyes when he began to step away from her.

Her hand wrapped around his, fingers lacing tightly with his own. "He stays," she announced, lifting her chin and turning her gaze to the doctor and Agent Hill, challenging them to argue with her. "I want him here with me for this."


	18. Chapter 18

Natasha felt the change on the air of the room, like something had shifted in the wake of her words and none of them would ever be the same. The first sign of everyone's surprise was the way that Clint's head whipped around to look at her. She could see the questions there and she could understand his surprise, although he had been there for her through everything, she had made a deliberate choice to keep the worst of what was done to her away from him. It was the wrong choice, nobody in the world knew her better than Clint Barton – she could trust him with anything.

"I think that it would be inappropriate for him to stay..." Maria began, "... medical information is bound by confidentiality, he wouldn't be told anything about your condition if you were injured and in medical..."

"This is different," Natasha interrupted, meeting the gaze of her superior agent with no indication that the matter was open to discussion. "I'm not injured Maria and what is happening here could have long-term effects for me. Since Clint is my partner and the only person that has kept me sane in the last couple of weeks, he's going to need to know sooner or later. This is my choice and I've made it."

The thin line of the other agent's mouth told the other occupants of the room exactly how Maria Hill felt about the situation but she wouldn't argue the point with Natasha, instead she turned to Clint himself. The look she gave him was cold. "Are you just doing this to make a point?" she asked.

Half turning so that she could see them both, Natasha wondered what had passed between them to result in the animosity she could feel on the air. This was more than just Hill pulling rank and looking out for Natasha's interests, it was almost personal, like she had a reason for wanting Clint out of the room and away from the conversation that was about to take place. She didn't understand it but it made her anxious, she didn't want trouble for him, not when he had done so much to take care of her.

Clint met Hill's gaze steadily, maintaining contact with Natasha's hand. "If Nat wants me here then I'm not going anywhere," he exclaimed. Natasha heard the resolve in his voice, his free hand found the bottom of her back, lending her his strength as the battle of wills raged around her. "So either have me dragged out of here or let's get this over with."

Dr. Carter stepped into the discussion, diffusing the tension with a nod in their direction. "There isn't going to be a physical exam so if Agent Romanoff feels that she would like her partner here, I see no harm in it," she remarked. "Is there anyone else you'd like here Agent?"

Natasha shook her head, relieved to feel some of the tension ebb out of Clint's muscles as the doctor spoke. "Actually I'd like it to be just Clint, myself and the doctor if that's okay Maria? If there are any questions arising from the medical report we can discuss them later."

Left alone with the doctor, she turned to look up at her partner, seeking his eyes and the strength that she always found there. Just the night before he had told her to lean on him and take whatever she needed from him until she was strong enough to stand on her own two feet again, in that moment she wasn't sure that she would ever be able to stand strong without this man at her side, that she would never be stronger than she was when they were together. He was the heat that stopped her shivers, the cold that shocked her back into her own body. He was the strength that supported her and the flexibility that allowed her to be herself. He was the bow and the dagger that covered her back. He was the killer who made her feel safe.

"You sure about this?" he asked her gently, giving her the chance to change her mind before the doctor started to talk and all the things that he knew she hadn't said became reality. She nodded.

"I tried hiding and look where it got me," she replied. Squeezing his fingers and then releasing her grip and moving to sit on the edge of the bed. Dr Carter took the desk chair, which Clint moved across the room for her, leaving him to lean against the edge of the desk with his arms braced against the wood.

"How are you feeling Agent?" the doctor asked, pulling a blood pressure cuff and blood drawing equipment from her bag. She offered a friendly smile and kept her gaze entirely on her patient, which was quite an achievement when Clint was nearby dressed in warm ups and a black wife-beater, leaving those spectacular arms and shoulders on show.

"Better I guess," she replied carefully, "stronger."

"And your sleep?" Natasha glanced at Clint, who looked right back at her, silently urging her to be honest with the woman in front of her. Although they had decided to do all they could to get her back in the field, she trusted Carter to help her get better rather than hinder her ability to move on from what had happened.

"Not so good," she admitted. "Being on base sets me on edge, I've been managing a few hours a night but I have been feeling tired."

Clint shook his head at the lie but didn't contradict her. Carter didn't seem to notice, she just nodded and made a note on the chart that she had brought with her. When she looked back up, she offered Natasha a reassuring smile. "We'll talk about your test results first and then I'll take the blood pressure reading and take some more blood, I doubt we'd get an accurate pressure reading otherwise."

Natasha nodded, already aware of her heart pounding and the feel of moisture on her palms. "I'd say you're probably right," she confirmed. Clint offered her a tight smile, moving his arms to fold them across his chest. She could see how tense he was and wanted to ask him to sit by her in case she fell apart when the results were given but she didn't, aware that if the results were something she didn't want to face her reaction might be unpredictable.

"It's good news," the doctor announced with a smile. "I can confirm that you definitely aren't pregnant and that all the STI tests came back negative."

Exhaling a breath that she hadn't even realised she was holding, Natasha turned her attention toward her partner, unable to avoid noticing the way he tensed at that happy little announcement. There was pain in his eyes, a genuine anguish at the thought that she might have been faced with a lasting legacy to the days she had spent lost in a nightmare. Noticing her looking at him, he locked away his feelings and smiled at her. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes and she moved quickly to make him feel better, extending her hand to him and drawing him closer. He came to her without hesitation, taking a seat at her side, his left shoulder pressing into the back of her right. Fingers winding around his, Natasha turned her attention back to the doctor.

"And the rest of it?" she asked.

"Obviously this doesn't rule out the potential of infection from the injuries you sustained but it's a bonus. Have you been taking the meds I gave you?" Carter asked. At Natasha's nod, she continued. "Well then we'll know in a week or so. The results are usually favourable but we'll do some more blood tests to keep an eye on things. As for the scarring..." she ticked a glance in Clint's direction, "it seems to be minimal but I'd still like to run an ultrasound to double check a couple of things with some of the internal injuries."

Natasha felt Clint stiffen against her, his body betraying the reaction he was trying so hard to hide. He might have known a lot more than she had told him but the reality was still a lot for him to handle.

"And the blood tests today?" Clint asked, taking the words right out of Natasha's mouth, gaze assessing the doctor in a way that somehow made Natasha feel safer even though she knew that she was in no imminent danger. The doctor had proved herself to be more than trustworthy. "What are they for?"

The doctor looked him directly in the face for the first time. "There was an anomaly on the blood work, an immunity marker that is slightly more prominent than I would expect. I just want to check that it's a blip and nothing to be concerned about."

After checking that she was okay, Clint left them while the blood was taken, retreating to the small private bathroom that adjoined her room. She suspected that he just needed a moment to process what he had heard and get a grip on his emotions before he rejoined her. When they heard the water running, the doctor looked up from the needle in her hand and gave Natasha a conspiratorial smile. "Your partner seems very protective," she exclaimed conversationally. "It's obvious that he cares for you a great deal, connections like that can be very important at a time like this."

"Of course we care about each other," Natasha replied automatically, "we would lie down and die for one another."

The doctor inclined her head slightly and nodded. "Bonds between partners can grow very strong," she agreed. "Sharp scratch."

As the needle penetrated her vein, Natasha turned her thoughts to what the doctor had said. It was true that she and Clint were closer than many of their colleagues were to their partners, she'd always put that down to the length of their partnership and everything that they had been through together. Could there be more to it on his part, on hers? Surely not. So caught up in her thoughts was she that she didn't notice that she was listing to one side, her head swimming, until a pair of strong arms caught her from behind. She'd never fainted in her life, unless you counted the time that she'd been given electroshock under the Red Room. She didn't count that instance.

"Has she eaten this morning?" the doctor asked. The sensation of the needle being withdrawn, brought Natasha round a little to see the woman's unflappable expression before her. She breathed in the smell that was uniquely her partner, a combination of Davidoff aftershave, wild forest and clean sweat, and tried to push herself upright, only to fall back against him.

"She wouldn't eat until she'd had the test results," Clint replied. "I'll make sure that she gets something once this is over."

"I'd recommend something sugary and then perhaps a nap," the doctor replied, addressing Clint. "I'll leave her in your capable hands Agent Barton and don't worry about Agent Hill, Natasha's comfort was more important than whatever issue she had with you, I'll smooth it over."


	19. Chapter 19

**A.N: **_Just a short one to conclude this part of the story. I didn't intend to carry this on today but it just grabbed at me and I had to blast it down while I could. Might be a few days before I can come back to this again - please bear with me. _

_Thank you for staying with this - means a lot to me. If you're reading this I'd love to hear from you - feedback and suggestions always welcomed! Special thanks to ShadowBeats22107, sandy-wmd, Emilyjay and sv4me who keep me going with their reviews and comments. Much appreciated! Hope you enjoy where this is going..._

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Natasha woke once again in the presence of her partner. From the bed, she watched him working at her desk, fingers flying over the keyboard as he worked on his laptop and wondered what he was working on.

"How long was I out?" she asked, pushing herself into a sitting position and ignoring the lingering ache at her elbow where her blood had been drawn.

"Little over two hours," he replied, closing the laptop and turning to face her. "Feeling okay?"

"Much better, you?" He knew what she was talking about and to his credit he didn't pretend otherwise. She waited patiently for his answer. "I didn't know how to tell you what they were testing for without admitting what happened..."

"I understand that," he replied, quietly. His downcast eyes told the story of how difficult he found the subject that was now front and centre between them but the set of his shoulders showed her that he wasn't backing away from the conversation, no matter how uncomfortable he found it. "Jesus Nat, to think of you facing all of that alone, it just tears me up inside."

His frank admission shocked her. She had known that he had suffered along with her at the cabin, that he had felt her pain as keenly as if it were his own, just as she had when he had suffered at Loki's hand, but she hadn't expected him to talk about it so openly. "I didn't face it alone," she told him, "you were there with me every step of the way, even though you didn't know it all."

Finally his eyes returned to hers, so earnest. "You know that we would have dealt with it though don't you?" he asked, "no matter what the tests came back with we would have found a way to deal with it."

"I know," she replied, amazed by the sincerity in his voice. "I'm just sorry that I didn't see it earlier than I did." She moved to the edge of the bed and glanced at the pile of paperwork that he had stacked neatly beside the computer. "What are you working on?" she asked.

Clint gestured dismissively toward the laptop. "Just catching up on some overdue field reports, you know how Hill loves to bust my ass for not getting them in on time..." he smiled at her. "She'll know I meant the apology I gave her when she sees I've caught up on all of this." He stood up and stretched out his arms, shoulders popping after sitting in one position for too long. His expression turned more serious as he looked back at her. "I do have something for you to look at though, no hurry, just whenever you think you're ready."

Interest sharpened by the way he touched one of the files that he had arranged on the desk, she scooted forward and rose to her feet. Clint's hand remained firmly on top of the file, preventing her from seeing anything more than the familiar SHIELD logo on the cardboard surface."What is it?"

"It's a reason for you to get yourself back to full strength and back into the field," he explained, "but you need to be sure you're ready before you open it and read what's inside."

"A mission?" she asked, searching his facial expression for confirmation that she was right. Clint nodded, eyes searching hers and apparently finding whatever he was looking for. He released his grip on the file, sliding it across the desk toward her and leaving her to make up her own mind.

She didn't know how she knew what was in the file, but she did. Natasha's fingers shook slightly, just the smallest tremor as she touched the cover of the file. She wasn't sure that she wanted to open it. She knew that she had to. "Is it what I think it is?" she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the file before her.

"It's a reason for you to get through what's coming and a way for us to put an end to any questions about whether you're fit to continue doing this job." He didn't move toward her, didn't push her to open the file or try to hold it back from her. He merely waited to see what she would do, letting her take stock of what he was offering her and make sense of its significance.

She looked up at him, fighting down the emotion that suddenly seemed to want to overwhelm her once again. How did this man always seem to give her just the incentive she needed to keep going, how did he always make it seem like the world wasn't falling down around her?

"You found them," she exclaimed, it wasn't a question. She had her answer in the grim light in his eyes.

"I did," he replied. "As soon as you're fit enough we'll hunt them down together, or say the word and I'll carry this burden for you Nat. I can get the job done and be back here within a week, your choice."

"It's no choice at all," she replied, opening the file. Letting the colder side of her nature surface, she allowed herself to open the file and study the maps, photographs and data that Clint had collected for her without emotion. The faces of the men who had tormented her, taunted her, beaten her, stared up at her from the page, instilling nothing but cold rage in her. Rage she was familiar with, the Black Widow was a daughter of fire and flame, rage burned in her like desire and she'd never been good at separating the two. Her desire for revenge merged now with her anger, focussing her mind and her body on the fight that was to come. "When do we start?"


	20. Chapter 20

**A.N: **_Apologies that you've had to wait so long for this. I've been pretty ill for the last week or so and today is the first day that I've made it out of bed for more than a couple of hours. As always thank you to those who have stuck with me through this, I know it's frustrating when you're waiting ;-) Hopefully now that I'm kind of back on my feet I can pick up with this a bit faster!_

* * *

Obsession was as good as oxygen, fuel to the fire of her vengeance, and Natasha was obsessed with putting an end to the men who had harmed her. For almost a month they had tracked their every move while she built up her strength and stamina, while they waited for the doctors to give her the all clear to go back into the field. Barton had no idea what she had said to the therapist to ensure that she was signed off or what the many visits to the doctor had been about but whatever it was it had worked wonders, she was looking much better.

Their training had taken on a new level of savagery, movements becoming sharp edged with desperation as she chafed at being held back. Almost as soon as he had shown her the file, he had seen the shift in her that told him she had locked away her feelings somewhere deep inside herself and that she had no intention of letting them out again until the job was done. In the hallways he heard the admiring whispers of the junior agents who had heard about their sparring sessions from those in his training group and were keen to see for themselves what two of the best looked like when they unleashed on one another.

He had known within twenty-four hours of them leaving the base that the mission was going to be brutal. Even armed with all of the information that they had been able to gather and the full backing of Hill and Fury, who had come through for them in a big way, they both knew there was no way that they would leave any of the group alive. Killing was what they did best and Natasha's suffering demanded no less than the lives of everyone who had caused it.

From the edge of the tree line to the west of the picture perfect farm-house, they watched for signs of movement. The house was like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, idyllic, all perfectly painted window shutters and smoking chimney. Downwind from the house there were no cooking smells or obvious indications of what was happening inside but both he and Natasha knew that two of her tormentors were in there and Barton knew that the chain holding Natasha's urge to act at bay was beginning to slip.

"We go in under cover of darkness," he explained, "Two inside. I'll cover the front, you take the back of the house. Sweep through, eliminate the targets, move on."

Natasha nodded her head, fiery hair catching the moonlight and making her pale features seem so much colder. "I'm not bringing them in alive Barton," she announced, "I know that Hill would prefer it done that way but..."

"I know," he told her quietly. "That's why I said eliminate and not incapacitate. Right behind you all the way Nat."

It was easy to forget just how lethal his partner was, particularly when he had been faced with her vulnerability in recent weeks, but as they approached the farmhouse it was like a hammer blow to his senses. Clothed in leather and dripping with weapons, every step that Natasha took was that of a warrior, every beat of her heart, like his own, the beat of a war drum. Tonight the red-headed woman before him was the very embodiment of death to those she hunted.

There was no movement through the curtains as he scouted the porch windows, no sounds to be heard from within the property. The moon was high but covered by clouds that shifted lazily across the sky, providing them with enough light to see but not enough to advertise their presence to anyone inside. It took a minute or two before he spotted her in the interior, just one more shadow within the house as she cleared the downstairs rooms of threats and stepped up to let him in through the front door.

Using hand signals she told him what she planned to do, moving toward the staircase at the side of the hallway while he covered her with his bow. The location was rural but she had still screwed silencers to the front of her handguns. No reason to announce their presence to anyone before they were ready for them to know that they were there and Natasha was good enough that you'd never see her coming until her knife was at your throat. He watched her move up the stairs, clinging to the shadows, moving without a sound, steady and sure-footed as a cat, gun at the ready. Slowly, he followed.

There was a large central landing at the top of the stairs, three bedrooms and a bathroom leading off from separate doors. At her gesture, he took the bedroom at the front of the house, stepping carefully and hoping to avoid any loose boards that might announce their presence, while she moved toward the bedroom at the rear of the house. His first room was empty, nothing and nobody waiting within but he heard the muffled sound of a gunshot from the back of the house and knew that she had found one of them. Ducking back out onto the landing to look for her confirmation, he caught a flash of movement as the second man darted from the unexplored bedroom, gun raised and firing wildly as he raced across the landing and down the stairs, footsteps echoing like gunshots in the silence. They'd been rumbled.

"Go, I'll slow him down!" he yelled, as Natasha darted from the bedroom and made to follow him to the lower level. He moved through into the front room where the guy had slept and headed directly for the window. Throwing open the old sash and raising his bow, he waited. He didn't have to wait long. Below him he heard the front door slam and then tracked the target as he took off across the clearing, gait slightly uncoordinated, but doing nothing to slow his stride. Where the hell was Natasha?

As if his thoughts called out to her, he heard the crash of glass and looked down to see his partner diving head first through the living room window, glass exploding outwards in a shower of diamond bright shards. Natasha tucked in her limbs, rolling like an Olympic gymnast and taking off after her target at a run, gun already aimed at the target. Like leather clad lightning, she shot across the open space after him, lowering the gun to enable herself to run faster. Catching his breath, Clint also focussed on the running man ahead of him, knocking an arrow he smiled. The arrow flew straight and true, striking the guy in the right thigh. Unable to bear his weight, the limb buckled the next time he tried to use it and he stumbled. It was all that Natasha needed to catch him.

As soon as he was sure that she had him, Clint moved from the window, jogging down the stairs and through the house to the front door. He was half way down the stairs when he heard the gunshot. His step faltered, the shot was too loud, unencumbered by a silencer, meaning that it hadn't come from either of Natasha's guns. With blood turned sluggish in his veins, he doubled his pace, flying out of the house and down the porch steps, feet carrying him as quickly as possible through the long grass to where his partner and her quarry struggled on the ground. Lungs screaming, he surveyed the scene before him, noting the bleeding wound to his partner's hair-line but no other obvious injuries. A gun lay discarded in the grass, not one of hers. There was no need to intervene, the Black Widow had her prey pinned beneath her, arms trapped beneath her knees while she aimed her gun directly between his eyes.

"Tell me where they are," she exclaimed coldly, never taking her eyes away from the man beneath her. When no answers were forthcoming she reached behind her with her left hand and twisted the arrow shaft that protruded from his thigh. Her captive cried out a string of what sounded like curses in a language that Clint neither spoke nor recognised, but he noticed that Natasha seemed to know exactly what was being said. "Where?"

"You were never anything but trouble," he ground out. "I told them you were more trouble than you were worth. Should have killed you when we had the chance." There was nothing that could even be considered slightly repentant in his face, tone or words and something inside Barton hardened at the thought that none of the men who had harmed her thought badly of their actions. Had Natasha not had control of the situation, he would have happily put an arrow through each of the man's limbs before beating some answers out of him. Instead he did nothing, just watched as she absorbed the words that had been offered.

"You don't realise how much I learnt about your organisation, how many secrets you spilled in my hearing," she told him. "You're right, you should have killed me when you had the chance." Shifting her weight slightly, she pointed the barrel once more at the head of the man pinned beneath her. She didn't even flinch as his blood slashed across her face.

"Nat?" Barton exclaimed crouching to bring himself into her line of sight, "will you let me check out that head wound?"

"Two down," she murmured, voice dreamy but laced with steel. She turned her face toward him, a weariness that wasn't evident in her body obvious in her eyes, "we need to search the house first, see what we can find and then when we get back to the safe house you can check me over."

It was almost dawn by the time they arrived back at the loft that had acted as their safe house and they were both exhausted. Searching the house had turned up some weapons and some paperwork that they would go through after they had caught a couple of hours sleep, but there had been nothing there that contradicted their current intelligence on the whereabouts of the others. Stepping out of the bathroom following a shower, he found Natasha already sleeping, the wound on her forehead cleaned and revealed to be nothing more than a tiny cut caused by a ring worn by the target. They had made it safely and largely unharmed through the first part of the mission, two targets down but there was still a long way to go and the demons that were driving his partner right now would not be patient in their pursuit of retribution for her hurts.

Lying atop his bed, he stared at the ceiling and considered the meaning of the words that she had said and all that had remained unsaid in the fields surrounding that farmhouse. Two down, three to go.


	21. Chapter 21

**A.N: **_Had some trouble with this one so if anyone spots anything glaringly obvious please let me know!_ _I really wanted to kill this guy off so I asked myself (and Shadowbeats 22107) just how brutal Natasha could be - this partially answered my question ;-)__  
_

* * *

The sky was heavy with the coming storm, the clouds a peculiar shade of green that always seemed to proceed thunder and lightning. She had always loved thunder, even as a child, feeling somehow like the sky's anger was an extension of her own. Even now she wanted to tilt her head back, raise her face to the sky and scream out the echoes of the thunder that resonated within her bones and somersaulted within her lungs. She knew that she was being unfair, that her need to draw a line under what had happened to her was pushing them both to the breaking point, but she couldn't step back from it to tell him that. Natasha honestly felt that she was becoming the living breathing bitch in that old saying about payback. She needed closure and killing the men who had hurt her was the only way that she knew how to get it.

None of what was going through her head was Clint's fault, if anything he had done more than she would have thought possible to aid her in this, tracking down the men they hunted, gathering information on them, understanding without having to be told that she needed to be the one who looked them in the eyes as they took their last breath. He just understood her, in the same way as he always had. Tonight as she waited for him to return to their latest safe house, she was sure that if she didn't move soon she would explode.

As if her thoughts had summoned him, she heard his key in the lock. Turning from the window she watched him as he stalked across the apartment, rainwater dripping from his hair and the dark clothing that he had worn during his stake out of the warehouse building. He was soaked to the skin and she wondered how many hours he had spent on a rooftop or in rubbish strewn alleyways waiting for the moment that his prey revealed himself. It wouldn't help either of them if he got sick because he'd spent too much time out in the rain.

"It's definitely him," he announced, grabbing a towel and roughly drying his face and hair. "I followed him from the warehouse to a converted loft down town, security is tighter than it was at the farm but nothing that we can't get through."

"What about the warehouse?" she asked, wondering what it was that had pulled one of her tormentors here when the others had kept such a low profile.

"Weapons," Clint replied, shrugging out of the wet leather jacket and throwing it over the back of a chair to drip dry, the shirt followed a moment later. "I didn't get a good look at what was in the crates but we should probably make our move soon so that none of those weapons find their way to the targets before we do."

She watched him as he moved across the room to the city map that they had pinned to the wall, a huge image intersected by lines mapped in brightly coloured string and pins. They had been holed up in this particular apartment for two weeks, tracking the movements of their target, learning his routes and his routines. As she watched him trace his fingertips over the streets of the map, pin at the ready, she considered the times that she had trailed the mark through the busy streets of the business district, fingers itching to corner him somewhere and show him just why it was advisable to ensure that a woman such as she was dead if she had been tortured for several days in a dank, basement bunker. Only her trust in the man in front of her had stopped her from doing it. They had worked too hard for her to destroy everything in a fit of temper.

"This is where we're going," he told her, gesturing to the newest pin that he had put in the board. "His loft takes up half of the top floor, if we scope the rooftop I'd be willing to bet we can get access from there. I managed to swipe one of their ear buds when I wandered in there to ask for directions so we can listen in to the security chatter while we're there. Once we're in we'll need to be quiet, in and out between the building's security patrols, four guards who are mostly interested in the floor below the loft, thirty minutes tops."

Natasha studied the map, taking in the details of the area that surrounded the building they were heading for. In the weeks that they had watched him, they had seen definite signs of agitation. Word had reached the survivors that two members of their brotherhood were no longer breathing, if he suspected that he might be in danger they could no longer afford to take chances when they approached him. Half an hour didn't seem like long enough to her for him to pay the debt for her days of suffering but it would have to be long enough.

"When?" she asked, turning to face her partner, taking in the set of his shoulders and the grim determination of his features. Clint looked at her, eyes sweeping over her face, searching for something, before turning back to the map. It bothered her that she had no idea what he was looking for or whether he thought he had found it, in this moment his expression was locked down, unreadable, the strategist in him turning over the scenarios that would lead them to where they needed to be.

"Sooner the better," he replied. "Give me an hour to see if I can pull the building plans. If I can see a way in we'll hit it tonight. It's better if we can do it and get out-of-town before the others are aware we're here."

Unable to just sit tight and do nothing, she headed into the kitchen and cracked the refrigerator. If she had to stay here longer than she liked, she could at least make herself useful and fix them both a sandwich. It might not be the a culinary masterpiece but at least she would have the satisfaction of knowing that Clint had at least eaten something that day and she could get a hot drink into him to help warm him up after his time out in the rain.

Five hours later, at the approach of midnight, Natasha found herself on the rooftop of the building Clint had followed Anders to earlier in the day. Time had given her the opportunity to study the files in detail, learning the names of each of her attackers and a bit about their backgrounds. It wasn't a great surprise that Thomas Anders had found himself work as a mercenary, not when she had read the military records that Clint had managed to hack into, violence, dishonourable discharge, several complaints of abuse towards women. He had all the skills required of a mercenary, violent tendencies, no morals and no loyalty to anyone but himself.

Suited up and hugging the shadows, she waited for her partner to give her the go ahead from his position further along the rooftop. Once Clint had finished with the access door, she would patch into the surveillance system so that they could keep track of the security detail on the floor below Anders' apartment. Standard procedure. Piece of cake. They weren't unduly concerned about the security guards, knowing that they were more interested in preserving the property stored on the lower floor but that didn't mean that they would be taking any chances, Natasha's guns had silencers fitted – not that she planned on using her guns this time.

At Clint's signal, she moved to his side, both of them slipping through the doorway and into the narrow stairwell beyond. It was the work of a minute or two to establish a link to the frequency being used by the guards so that they could hear the communication between the two that patrolled the building and their pair of colleagues on the ground floor. Killing the lights in the service stairwell, they moved quickly downward, the steady thumping of her heart and the occasional radio chatter in her earpiece the only thing to interrupt Natasha's thoughts.

"Once we get through the door we need to kill the camera and keep left," Clint explained, "there are two apartment spaces up here, Anders occupies the one on that opens from the left doorway. I'll keep watch while you take care of the lock."

Natasha merely nodded, following his cautious steps as he disconnected the wiring that led to the cheap monitoring camera and moved along the hall. It was rare that she went anywhere without a set of lock picking tools secreted somewhere about her person, some old skills and old habits died hard and Natasha had learned her trade from people who set her to work as soon as she was old enough to wield the tools efficiently. There were few locking systems that she hadn't developed the technique to infiltrate and the rudimentary locks on the door of Thomas Anders provided little challenge.

The apartment was almost silent and mostly dark, the only light coming from a TV screen in another room. Slipping silently through the door, they moved to opposite sides of the room, Clint moving toward the window wall whilst she stuck to the interior of the apartment. Removing the ear bud, she slipped it into her pocket, drawing one of her guns so that she was ready in the event of a surprise attack. She lost track of Clint within seconds, his body melting into the shadows in a way that made him almost invisible to her gaze.

The sound of someone closing a refrigerator door drew her toward the kitchen area where she found Anders opening the beer that he had just removed. Natasha felt the wash of fury riding her, this was not the hot anger that passed quickly, the anger of passion and surface temper, but the deadly cold of hatred that could only be appeased with violence of a near surgical precision. She took in the room in which he stood, the counter tops and the TV mounted on the wall, no way in without being seen, no way to get a clear shot without exposing herself. The light caught his features in such a way that she was reminded almost forcefully of the way his profile had been lit when he visited her in that basement room. For a crazy moment she actually entertained the idea of just stepping out of the shadows and walking brazenly into the kitchen, she actually quite liked the idea.

A scuffed footstep to her left drew her attention and that of her target. In an uncoördinated rush Anders dropped the beer and grabbed for the .44 on the counter, moving out of the kitchen and into the open plan living area of the loft. Though he kept the Magnum by his side, she knew that he was prepared and able to use it. There was no way that her partner, a man who could move almost silently, had betrayed his location by accident, which meant that he had deliberately betrayed his presence to give her a chance at him. _Damn him, putting himself in danger that way. _He was giving her an opening to take Anders out but to do it he had potentially put himself in danger. Keeping her back to the wall, she slid her gun into its holster and reached for her knife, searching the shadows for her partner.

Thomas Anders had taken great pleasure in pressing his hunting knife to her throat when he tormented her, pushing the blade into the soft skin until she could feel it's bite while he breathed those vile words into her face. She wondered how he would feel when he found himself at the mercy of someone else's dagger hand.

Years of experience and the bone deep understanding that came from being Clint's partner told her where to look for him. He was concealed behind one of the floor length curtains at the window nearest the corner of the room with little opportunity to manoeuvre and even less to escape if the mercenary opened fire. She watched Anders' gaze tick right and left, his body coiled and ready to attack at the slightest provocation and she knew that it was only a matter of time before he found her partner in his current hiding place. There was no time to play games with him, much as she would have liked to, because in the moment she found that her revenge didn't matter half as much as Barton's safety. He was the only thing that mattered.

"Might as well come out, I know you're here." That voice, the sibilant whisper that haunted her sleeping and waking moments, the memory of words thrown in her face. He didn't know where to look, not yet. Tracking every twitch of his muscles, she saw the exact moment that he spotted Barton in his hiding place, she saw the movement as he adjusted his grip on the revolver. "Step out into the light. I want to see your face before I shoot you."

Clint stepped slowly out from behind the curtain, directly into the line of fire, but he kept his back to the window. In the dark his features were concealed, his build disguised by the dark fabric of his suit. She saw a wavering in Anders expression as she crept closer, moving to stand directly behind him, blade ready. His eyes narrowed, searching the darkness for features that might have been familiar to him, his grip on the gun faltering slightly. "Is that you Jack?" he asked.

Natasha stepped from the shadows and she knew from the slightest movement in Barton's shoulders when he saw her. She moved quickly, her blade glinting in the moonlight as she raised it. She knew that she'd caught him by surprise when she grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back, exposing his throat to her blade. "No, not Jack," she hissed in his ear, enjoying the fear that she could suddenly smell on him. "I am vengeance."

Blood sang in the dark as she drew her blade across his throat, air hissing over his severed vocal chords as he attempted to call out. She hadn't given him time to react, hadn't given him time to retaliate and now his attention was fully on trying to stem to flow of blood from his wound. As he dropped gracelessly to the ground, she wasted no time in kicking the gun out of his reach. With quiet efficiency she sliced the tendons at the back of his knees so that he couldn't run and then turned her attention to the flexor tendons in his forearms. Immobilised and bleeding out, Anders stared at her with impotent hatred. Natasha didn't flinch from his gaze, showing him the disdain that she felt for him, allowing her hatred to simmer as she watched him bleed.

Clint moved through the shadows of the apartment until he reached her side, standing over her crouched form. Anders tried to reach for her, his anger giving him a strength that she wouldn't have expected even for a man like him. His hand never reached her, Clint's booted foot came down on his wrist, pinning it to the floor. "This is the one who liked to cut you," he exclaimed with disgust. Natasha nodded, not trusting what would come out of her mouth. Barton's own mouth twisted into a sneer. "Live by the blade die by the blade."

Rising to her feet with the help of her partner's hand, Natasha stared down at the whimpering mess that had haunted her for months and felt nothing, no guilt, no remorse for the manner of his death. If anything there was a slight feeling of relief that Thomas Anders would never have the chance to harm another woman, it was too late for her but not for the others that she was sure would have suffered at his hand. She slipped the ear bud back into her ear, taking a second to listen to the chatter of the security guards, nothing out of the ordinary, no signs of alarm on the radio.

As soon as the light left Anders' eyes, she turned to Clint, seeking his eyes in the dark. "You could have got yourself killed!" she told him sternly. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Barton merely shrugged a shoulder, "you had me covered. I trusted you to get the job done otherwise I never would have pulled that move with the footsteps. You needed an opening, I gave you one."

"Have I told you lately that I love you?" she joked. Her gaze flicked to the body at their feet. "He deserved what he got and more, I have no regret."

"I'd be surprised if you did," he told her. "Come on, lets head back to the apartment, grab some shut-eye and tomorrow we can plan our next move."

They retraced their entry route, reconnecting the camera feed as they left and slipping out onto the rooftops and down into an alleyway a few buildings over. As they moved through the streets on the way back to their apartment building, Clint's arm slipped around her shoulders and her head came to rest against him, helping them to blend in among the crowds that loitered outside several bustling nightclubs. It was easier to assume the cover of a couple on a night out if they wished to remain unnoticed among the leather clad crowds. Despite the warmth of the night and the adrenaline that still surged in her veins, it didn't escape her attention that Clint's touch was the only warmth she could feel, Natasha was thankful that she was too weary to analyse what that meant.


	22. Chapter 22

While Anders had proved a challenge to pin down, the two remaining targets seemed more interested in leading them on a merry dance through the southern states. The moment they hit the New Mexico border, Natasha had known where they were headed and when she had voiced her opinion to him it had taken all of his self-control not to encourage her to leave the mission behind and let him finish things on her behalf. If ever he had needed definitive proof that they were sadistic bastards, the fact that they were luring her back to the site where she had been held confirmed it.

Nursing bruises and one or two minor injuries from a skirmish with one of their targets over the last few days, he had found them a place to stay in Alamogordo and convinced her that she needed to rest and give her body a chance to recuperate before they went charging into what would most probably be an ambush situation. Barton had never been a fool when it came to seeing a strategic advantage and he knew that by bringing them to familiar territory Jack Sawyer and William Brady had all of the cards in their pocket. Their former base was, of course, a place that they knew well and their ability to spring a trap there was considerably higher than it would have been on neutral ground.

"How's your leg?" Natasha asked as he emerged from the bathroom. The previous night he had taken a nasty blow to his right thigh and the bruising was now fully evident around the wound. It ached, sometimes fiercely when he tried to move at speed, but he was pretty sure that nothing was broken. Sometimes the small victories, the day-to-day events that turned out to be not quite as bad as expected, were the only ones that could be focussed on. These days, Clint was all about the small victories.

Curled up in the armchair at the far side of the room beside the ancient TV set, book in hand, Natasha looked tired. The urge to try to force her to rest more would only earn him a scathing look and a couple of hours of female disapproval, it was far safer to let her come to the realisation that she needed sleep on her own terms. Since they were sharing a room, and therefore the double bed inside it, for security, he was sure that he could convince her to have an early night if he did the same.

"I'll live," he replied, offering her a smile. "Pretty sure there's nothing broken so it's just a case of resting it and stretching it out."

"Let me see," she exclaimed, beckoning him closer. Barton knew better than to argue. Moving slowly, he crossed the distance between the area directly outside the bathroom door and the chair in which his partner sat and turned so that the injured leg faced her. He felt no awkwardness standing in front of her in nothing but a pair of boxers and he seriously doubted that Natasha was feeling anything of that nature either, they'd treated one another's wounds often enough to have lost the inherent modesty that they'd started out with in such situations. He watched her as she traced her fingers around the edges of the bruising, assessing its location and the way that the wound was healing in much the same way as he had done. He saw the concern that flickered through her green eyes as she came to the area directly over the muscle which was worst affected. "If we were on base you'd be visiting the physio for this," she told him, "if this muscle stiffens up it will seriously affect your movement, let me massage the tightness out of it before you sleep."

Clint noticed that she didn't phrase her words as a request or as an instruction but somewhere in-between the two. "It'll be fine," he told her, shrugging off the discomfort. He did not want her to think that he was carrying an injury that would slow them down, knowledge like that would make her far more likely to go out into the desert without him and try to take down Sawyer and Brady single handedly. "Barely hurts."

"Really?" she asked, twisting her fist against the surface of his skin. She didn't put any pressure behind the movement and ordinarily it wouldn't have registered as anything close to pain but ordinarily he wasn't bruised to the bone. Clint's entire leg caught fire, his knee threatening to buckle as he twisted away from the contact. On instinct his hand shot out and closed around her wrist, preventing her from touching him again. As he hissed in a breath and glared down at her, Natasha met his gaze calmly but with the irritating expression of someone proved right. "You're not fine," she announced pointedly, "you're in pain and you're going to let me help you. Lie down on the bed while I grab the medical supplies."

He released her wrist as she rose from the chair, padding barefoot into the bathroom to collect the field medical kit that they almost always carried with them during missions. He wasn't worried about her ability to ease the wound, Natasha had an uncanny knack for being able to read an injury and every agent had some training in how to massage out tightened muscles. It wasn't her ability that worried him in this situation, but his. Letting down his partner was the thing that he feared most, particularly in a situation where so much was on the line and the stakes were so personal. Carefully, he moved to the bed and eased himself onto the mattress to wait for her.

"It's a good thing you're neat when you stitch yourself up," she murmured as she emerged from the bathroom with a bottle of lotion and some towels. "That wound could have been nasty if it had been left open. Here, take a couple of these to help with your temperature."

He hadn't realised that he had a temperature but he trusted her judgement so he took the pills without comment. Perhaps a slight fever explained why he had found the motel room so stuffy all day. Without comment, she dropped the towels on the end of the bed and flipped the switch to turn on the ceiling fan. Warm air moved around the room as the blades circulated and Clint sighed, easing back onto the pillows. Natasha's hands were steady and sure as she positioned his leg where she wanted it, every sweep of her palms easing the tightness that made his thigh throb in time with his heartbeat.

She talked while she worked, telling him what she was doing and why, reciting facts that she had learned about the workings of the human body and how to quicken healing in muscle injuries. Although she didn't tell him where she had learned such lessons, he knew enough from his own forays into sports massage to know that what she was saying was correct. The touch of her fingers as she kneaded the muscle was soothing, any pain numbed by tiredness and whatever medication she had given him. Barton felt his eyes growing heavy and fought the growing tide of sleep.

He woke some time later to find the room lit by the soft buttery glow of a table lamp. A pillow was propped between his knees, providing support for his injured leg and the ceiling fan was still swirling lazily. He lifted his head, searching the room for his partner, terrified that he would find she had taken off but Natasha was on the balcony, staring silently out into the night. The mattress squeaked and he moved and she turned to look in his direction. She was on her feet and inside the room a moment later.

"Thought you took off," he exclaimed, watching as she locked the door and double checked it before she came back to the bed. Hitching up her nightgown, she climbed onto the mattress and crawled toward him, reaching for a glass of water on the night stand and offering it to him. He sipped it gratefully and tried to adjust his position. Her hand on his shoulder made him think better of it.

"Try to keep that leg supported, it'll heal faster." She smiled at him, resettling the glass on the table and testing his temperature by laying her palm against his forehead. "We need to be at our best if we're going out into the desert. We know where they are and we know that they aren't going anywhere, a couple of days won't make a difference..."

Barton didn't speak, relieved and surprised that she had stayed when she knew just where to look for her revenge. Come to think of it, something had changed in her since the night they killed Thomas Anders, her anger had turned colder, her thinking no longer clouded by rage. "I'm slowing you down," he said finally, offering her the chance to walk away without feeling bad about what she needed to do. He hated the idea of her being out there alone with men who had already caused her more pain than almost anyone she had ever met, but he trusted her judgement and he loved her enough to let her go if that was what she wanted. He didn't want to be the man standing in her way.

"You aren't slowing me down," she told him firmly, grasping his chin and forcing him to meet her gaze. No lies. No barriers. There was nothing between them in that moment. She was choosing to let him see her without the walls that she kept up at all times. "If I had to make this choice a hundred times over, to go out there alone or to do this with anyone but you at my side, I'd do the same thing every time. I will always choose you Barton. Always."

Choked, he didn't know what to say to that admission. He wasn't sure what it meant, not really. He was sure that she was pledging her devotion to him as a partner and nothing more, but the words made something inside him soar. That she, a woman so notoriously guarded with her emotions, would give him that much... She astounded him. "Nat..."

"I don't care how long it takes," she told him, settling on the mattress beside him, gaze still holding his, every word a pledge. "We finish this together."

For a long time, Barton lay awake, aware of her presence at his back but forced to face the wall because he couldn't put pressure on his injured leg by rolling over. She was right there when the fever returned and he shivered, the mattress shaking beneath him. His leg ached as he trembled, the muscles protesting the rapid movement that rushed through them. Surprising him, Natasha pressed her body in close to his back, her arms snaking around him and holding him close. Her words were soft, soothing, as she encouraged him to sleep, to let the medicine and a few hours sleep help him recover.

For the first time he fell asleep in her arms and not with her body in his own.


	23. Chapter 23

_Just a quick update to keep us rolling - struggling to find the time to write at the moment but I'll update as often as I can! Hope you like it. _

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It was two days before his ability to move on the injured leg began to improve. Natasha watched over him carefully, aware that the desire to see her get closure would push him to work the leg too hard before it was ready. They worked together on stretching out the muscles, maintaining the strength and flexibility that he was used to without causing any further damage. Though she would never admit it, she found herself benefiting from the respite too. Her sleep didn't improve much but just having some downtime and eating well gave her body a chance to throw off the exhaustion that had built since they had taken on Anders.

The execution had made the local news, reporters flocking to the scene of the 'grisly murder' and speculating on crime statistics in the big city. It galled her somewhat to see the man who had tortured her being portrayed as a victim but she was more concerned about what the news coverage would provide the surviving men with. The reports had also got her some grief from Hill who was not impressed that they'd made such a bold statement when they killed Anders or that they hadn't taken steps to conceal their work. As far as Natasha was concerned the woman should be happy that she hadn't displayed the body publicly or left a very obvious calling card on the corpse, they had been remarkably subtle in leaving the body in a condition where it could be mistaken for a victim of random crime.

Four days after she had forced him to rest the leg, they agreed that it was time for them to move on out into the desert. They spent the day planning, curled up side by side with maps laid out before them on the mattress, and preparing for the ride out into the desert. She woke from a brief nap in the early evening to find her partner, suited up and ready to go, bow strapped to his back as he paced around the room, limp barely affecting his stride. He looked powerful, determined, and it was like hundreds of other missions that they had completed together, so familiar that the simple sight of him felt like home and family and everything that made her feel safe and secure.

Natasha took her time dressing, checking every weapon to make sure that it was functioning correctly. She cleaned her guns, checked the mechanism on each of her folding knives, tested the power to her Widows Bite bracelets and forced all thoughts that weren't directly related to killing Brady and Sawyer out of her head. Tonight was a night for killing, not for mulling over the ever shifting tides of her emotions.

Following the plan they acquired a car on the outskirts of town and drove out into the desert, driving the last few miles before they abandoned the vehicle with the lights out. They hiked the last mile or so to their destination in silence, Natasha keeping watch on Clint's injured leg for signs of strain and finding none. There wasn't any need for words, they were more than able to communicate with one another without opening their mouths, and there was nothing that either of them could say that would make them feel better about what they were potentially about to walk into. With every step she took, Natasha felt the chill that had started to settle in the centre of her chest spread a little further through her body and limbs. She had no wish to step back into that compound with its subterranean tunnels and its remembered horrors. She had to go back there to prove to herself that she could and she had an urge just to burn it to the ground.

The complex smelled the same as she remembered, stale air and hot metal, as they moved through the upper rooms of the old warehouse toward the hidden stairway at the back of the complex. The only thing missing was the heavy metallic smell of spilled blood. Natasha didn't need to smell it on the air, her subconscious was doing a fantastic job of filling in the gaps for her, forcing her to divert some of her attention towards locking down the memories and the impotent urge to vomit. She hadn't eaten a thing all day and now she was glad that her appetite had deserted her once again.

At the foot of the stairs, Clint paused, signalling for her to stop, eyes scanning the dimly lit hallway as if searching for any sign that their presence had been detected. She didn't see a need for such caution; their presence was expected. When he was confident that nothing was coming directly at them, he moved aside to let her move up to his side. They had both been there before, Natasha's memories of the place permanently stained with the blood that she had spilled somewhere in this warren of former mining tunnels, Clint's memories probably clearer than her own but no less horrific. His eyes asked the question that he wouldn't voice aloud and she nodded, yes she was okay. Without words they moved forward, weapons raised, bodies turned outward as they moved, sweeping the shadowed doorways for signs of threat.

Clearing the first seven rooms told her exactly where Sawyer and Brady would be hiding. There was no way, given the number of security cameras that they had passed under, that they didn't know who had infiltrated their base. They were waiting for her in the last place that she wanted to go and Natasha was going to have to face her nightmares head on.

The room appeared empty when she peered through the doorway, illuminated by the screens of a dozen black and white computer monitors which seemed to display the hallway security footage. Metal glinted almost everywhere she looked. She suppressed a shudder, working up the nerve to step over the threshold and put herself back in the space where she had been victimised, the only thing that would make it tolerable this time was the knowledge that she was putting herself in that space and that when she left the men who had harmed her would be dead. Gunfire lit up the hallway behind them, and they dropped low to avoid any rounds that had ricocheted off the walls.

"Move!" Clint yelled, forcing her through the doorway and into the room. Natasha followed his instructions without question, turning to cover him just as the metallic door slammed shut, closing them off from one another. Launching herself at the door, she screamed his name, impotent rage and something close to panic momentarily suspending her ability to think rationally. Clint was on the other side of that door, caught amid the gunfire and she couldn't protect him.

The gunfire died. Booted footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. Silence.

"Barton?" she screamed, trying in vain to release the locking mechanism that had triggered when the door closed. "Hawkeye!"

For the first time since she had escaped from the room she now stood in, he didn't respond when she called for him.


	24. Chapter 24

Forcing herself to breathe, Natasha rested her head against the metal of the door and tried to clear her mind. The thought that her partner was out there, possibly in need, and that she couldn't get to him was like a knife twisting in her ribs. She listened carefully, hoping that she would hear the sound of his voice as he reassured her in those quiet tones that he was okay, that he was going to find another way into the room and that she should just wait for him, but there was no sound.

After a long moment she turned, putting her back to the door to face the room and the memories of what had happened within its walls once again. It was almost exactly as she remembered it except for the fact that someone had cleaned the blood from the tiles. It didn't make a difference, she could still see it everywhere she looked, Natasha had always had the ability to see blood long after it was cleaned away, the red stains remaining on her vision to remind her of all the lifeblood that she spilled in her life, of the ledger that she was constantly trying to balance.

She moved slowly, pulling her second gun as she moved further into the room. With a dispassionate eye she took in the ring in the floor to which she had been chained, the surgical tools that had been used on her, still lined up neatly on their racks and table tops. The lingering echoes of memories that had surfaced in the days after she had escaped chewed at her but her guns didn't waver. Her heartbeat slowed, all emotion fading away as she embraced the side of her nature that thrived on bloodshed, the reserves of violent creativity that she almost never tapped for fear of what it would awaken in her, and she opened her senses to the room.

The security monitors flickered, signal lost, making light dance on the walls. With no way to see what waited for her out in the hall, she concentrated on the certainty of what waited for her within. One or both of the men she had come to kill were in this room with her; she knew it with as much certainty as she knew that her partner was the only man she would ever trust with the unedited truth of herself. Something was different about the room, something about the wall behind the 'gaming bed' to which she had been repeatedly tied. She had always assumed that there was a noticeboard on the wall, concealed behind some kind of tapestry or curtain that she had never paid much attention to, but now she could see that behind the cloth there was a mirror that dominated the space. Having been in such rooms more times than she could count, she suspected that any mirror fixed into the wall of a tiled medical room was fitted with two-way glass. All the better to watch a captive squirm. Natasha stared at the darkened glass, watching her muted reflection, allowing her senses free rein to assess her environment.

_There... in the deepest shadows of the room_. Something moved, a sudden, quick movement as if whomever hid there sensed that they had been caught. She whipped up her gun just as the overhead lights flared to life, blinding her momentarily. A moment was all he needed to close the distance. William Brady slammed into her, forcing her body backward across the open space until he could pin her to the wall. Natasha lost her grip on one of her handguns, hearing is skitter across the floor somewhere to the right; the other wrist was caught in the grip of one of her attackers fists and slammed into the wall until she lost her second firearm too. With his elbow to her windpipe she was going nowhere.

Winded and unable to fight back, Natasha stared him in the face and forced herself to meet his stare without flinching. He was not a large man but he was strong and would have been physically imposing had she not spent most of her time with large and physically imposing men. He had taken particular pleasure in letting Natasha know just how powerless she was when he had visited her here, reminding her in every way possible that he was stronger than her and she was too weak to fight him, even if they had gone to great lengths to keep her drugged and weakened.

His body crowded hers, pinning her against the tile while his free hand moved to close around her throat. Brady liked to feel the power of life and death, to try to squeeze the life out of her, but she had never given him the satisfaction of hearing her beg. Repeatedly, she had given her body over to unconsciousness rather than tell him whatever it was that he wanted to hear. She would never give him the satisfaction of breaking her, no matter how bad things had been she had maintained her power in that regard.

So caught up in the idea of having her exactly where he wanted her, he had made overlooked one simple and yet important factor, tonight Natasha was not drugged and she hadn't been starved of food and water. The woman he had tormented, weakened, wasted and fighting for survival, had not been the Black Widow. Tonight he would meet the Widow for the first time and he would be made to understand why she carried the reputation that she had earned.

"We've missed you Natasha," he leered, leaning in close so that he could breathe his words directly into her face. "I knew it was only a matter of time before we met again especially after you paid visits to the others."

Though her lungs screamed for air and her wrist ached where he had slammed it into the wall, she forced her body to relax and stay pliant in his grip, even allowing her eyes to roll back in their sockets. By feigning submission she could conserve her energy, even though it went against her entire nature to let him, even for a second, think that he had won. She focussed on her heart, counting the beats, forcing her panic down into her chest where she could harness it and use the adrenaline to her advantage. A second or two later she felt Brady adjust his grip on her, the press of his body lessening for a second as he moved. Natasha capitalised on his shift in balance, slamming her foot down on the instep of his foot and activating the widows bite bracelet on her injured wrist before pressing it into the exposed skin at the back of his neck. He didn't see the attack coming and his reaction gave her the chance to disengage her body from his hold.

She didn't waste her time on words, she threw herself at him, lashing out with fists and feet, ducking out of his reach and forcing him backwards, keeping him off-balance. In a fist fight she could only hold him off for so long, but she had speed and flexibility on her side and she was nothing if not creative. She had wanted him to suffer, but right now, faced with the reality that she might be alone in the complex without any idea where Sawyer was hiding, she knew that she needed to end things quickly. The death of the men they had come to kill was the only poetry that she could give her partner and she intended to make it worthy of him.

Adrenaline burned in her veins, lighting her up from the inside, and her body responded to the call as the fight continued. Taking a blow to the face that spun her around and dropped her to her knee, Natasha reached for the knife strapped to her thigh and drew it effortlessly. The blade snapped open with a well-timed flick of her wrist and she rose quickly, slashing upwards and opening Brady's dominant right arm from elbow to shoulder. Blood gushed, splattering on the tile, and he grabbed for the wound trying to staunch the flow. She pressed the advantage, landing a kick that sent him sprawling across the top of one of the tables of instruments with a pained grunt.

"You'll pay for that bitch!" he growled, rising from the table with a scalpel in his hand. Again she didn't respond, keeping her eyes on the glint of the weapon he now held. For what seemed like an eternity, they traded blows, fast and fluid, a dance of fist and blade, until she lost her grip on her knife and found herself restrained from behind, both of her arms twisted painfully behind her back. Blood seeped down the side of her face and she stiffened as he leaned in close to trace his tongue along the column of her throat. "You taste just like I remember..." he chuckled.

Fury flooded her, turning her blood to gasoline in her veins and she reacted, throwing her head back into Brady's face as violently as she could. Bone crunched beneath the blow and she felt the warm gush of his blood in her hair. When he recoiled, wrenching her arms, she went with him, dropping her body weight onto him and using the momentum to roll over and off him. Reversing his hold, she slammed her body into the back of his own and mashing his shattered nose into the tile wall. "How did that taste?" she asked, spitting her words into his face.

Brady squirmed, unable to get any leverage that would help him to break her hold, she could hear his breath, loud, the exertion had taken a toll on him.

"Tell me where Agent Barton is," she demanded, twisting his injured arm viciously. Brady groaned and spat a mouthful of blood onto the tile. His voice emerged in a wet chuckle, distorted by his nose and the way she had him pressed into the wall. She tried again, raising her voice. "Where is my partner?"

Brady offered her a bloody smile, clearly relishing the moment. "Dead," he spat. He laughed again. "You brought your partner down here and he died because of it; his blood, it's on your hands."

Pain drove the breath from Natasha's body as the words echoed in her ears. For an endless moment she felt only anguish, a bone deep sorrow that tightened her chest, and then that faded leaving only the cold reservoir of anger that her life experiences had given her. Lifting her chin, unaware of the feral glitter in her eyes, she met Brady's expectant gaze. Whatever he saw in her eyes, he recoiled from it.

"If he is dead," she exclaimed flatly, tightening her grip on the handle of her knife, "then so are you."

As if on cue the lights died and the mirror on the wall opposite them exploded, Barton taking out the entire span of the glass with his back, glass shattering and raining down around them as he flew through it as if propelled by tremendous force. He landed hard, head bouncing off the floor as another figure followed him through the newly made opening. He made no sound as he landed, made no attempt to cushion his landing in any way.

Screaming his name, Natasha hauled Brady away from the wall and forced him to the floor with a well placed kick to the back of each knee in time to watch Jack Sawyer rise to his full height. Clint didn't respond and Natasha felt something as cold as the Siberian winter spiralling up from deep within her. "Come any closer and I'll kill him," she threatened, positioning her blade to the right of his throat, directly over the man's carotid, her hand didn't shake despite the emotion that roared through her.

Sawyer looked unaffected by the threat, as if his colleagues demise would mean nothing to him. "I wouldn't recommend that Agent Romanoff," he told her coldly. "It would be better for all concerned if you were to just put down the knife and surrender yourself. I have big plans for our partnership that would be greatly affected by having to spoil that beautiful face of yours."


	25. Chapter 25

**A.N:** _This chapter has been both pulling at me and tormenting me since last night and it has been the most difficult chapter of this story to write! Thanks to all you lovely people who have followed, read and reviewed - we're not done yet but I'm going to need a few days before the next one makes an appearance! _

_Thank you to Torti Quercu for your comments on the last chapter and to Phoenixblitz for your kind words about this story - I really appreciate it and I'm glad that you've both enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it! _

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The sound of her voice calling his name woke him, pulling him toward consciousness as somebody dragged him roughly across the floor and dumped his body against the wall. _Natasha_.

Clint was floating, his entire body suspended in a sea of nothingness, cold seeping into his limbs as he tried to piece together the events that had led him there. He wasn't uncomfortable, not really, if anything there was a curious numbness that had settled over him. A soft fog covered his senses,. It was a lot like ocean swimming, his body suspended beneath the surface, eyes looking down into the infinite blackness that lay below him and up toward the light that danced on the surface.

Flashes of memory, distorted by the slight ringing in his ears, brought back the events that had led him there. Walking down a hallway, gunfire, a door slamming. Where was he? Inhaling, Barton caught the scent of hot metal and blood, mingling with some kind of cleaning chemical that made his nose twitch. There had been a fight, brutal, so many blows, too many to count. Two men had come at him, one of them had died impaled on one of his arrows but the other one ... What had happened to the other one?

Forcing his eyes open, he found himself in a darkened room, the only light spilling in through a gaping hole in the wall above him. Glass shards glittered like crystals in the light, crunching beneath the boots of the man who had propped him against the wall. Pain shimmered on the edges of Barton's senses, awareness coming back to him in a rush as he heard the voice of at least one man somewhere in the room. The hole above him had been a mirror and the ache in his back, shoulders and skull had been caused by his body crashing through it. He tested his ability to move, curling his fingers toward the knife sheath strapped to his thigh and was relieved when his hands followed the instruction. He might feel like road kill but he could still move and if he could move he could fight.

"We underestimated you Natasha," announced a voice that he recognised as that of the man he had fought with in the hallway. The sound of that voice, the intimate way in which he said Natasha's name, made that increasingly familiar part of his nature snarl in anger. Vision swimming, he scanned the room, instincts recoiling from the memory of the last time he had stepped inside as an image of Natasha, chained and bleeding, flashed into his brain. "Understand that I won't make that mistake again."

Natasha stood on the other side of Jack Sawyer, the blade of her knife pressed to Brady's throat. Her face was deathly pale, except for where blood glittered against it but her hand was steady on the knife. For a second he didn't understand the look in her eyes, the desolation that he saw there mingled with the anger and then he realised that it was the look he had seen every day in the mirror when she had been missing. She wore the expression of someone who was quietly dying, her eyes dark and blank except for the anger that smouldered there like candle flames in empty windows.

"One more step and I'll cut his throat," she announced coldly. Sawyer chuckled and Clint saw the blood that ran from the wound to her captive's arm to pool on the floor below them. The memories roared and the need to avenge her suffering gave him the strength he needed to gather his limbs without crying out.

"As you did to Anders?" Sawyer asked mildly. "I saw what you did to him, inspiring really so much precision, but then you had your partner to help you didn't you? Not so now. You took my allies and I have taken one of yours ..."

What happened next appeared to him as if in slow motion. Brady threw himself to the right and into the crook of Natasha's curled arm, throwing them both of balance and knocking her leg out from beneath her. Like an acrobat she rolled, springing at Sawyer and taking him down to the floor with a vicious swipe of her legs. They traded blows, Natasha wrapping herself around him like a vine, pummeling the face of the larger man with punches until Brady regrouped enough to haul her off his friend and restrain her.

Forcing himself to his feet, Clint adjusted his grip on the hilt of his knife, hugging the shadows to stay out of sight. Only the strength that he drew from his connection to her kept him on his feet as the room swirled around him. Brady had pulled a knife from somewhere and now held it to her throat, his grip was not as sure as her own had been. Trusting his instinct, Barton whistled a sharply ascending note into the air, interrupting the chatter between the two men that he had tuned out. Natasha reacted perfectly, handling what must have been a devastating surprise beautifully and ducking to one side in Brady's grip just as he had known she would.

The knife left his hand, travelling end over tip to cross the distance between them in the blink of an eye, passing so close to her that he could only pray that she didn't turn her head to look for him. As Brady reacted, the knife caught him in the meatiest part of the shoulder, impact shifting the angle of his torso away from Natasha. He let out a cry of pain and dropped the blade, allowing her to fight her way out of his grip. Barton didn't wait to see how it unfolded, she'd always been more than able to handle herself in a fight, instead he threw himself into the fray, flying at Sawyer as he turned toward him, snagging him around the waist and pasting him to the tile in a spear tackle that rattled his teeth.

Time slipped away from him as they wrestled with one another, his hand reaching for the closest weapon he could find atop the metal table above them. Something hard collided with his injured leg, opening the stitches. He gritted his teeth against the pain as he felt the warm rush of blood beneath his suit. A pair of gunshots sounded in the room, the sound so loud and close that it translated only as pain when his eardrum absorbed the stimulus. Reeling, he brought the buck knife down with all the force he could summon into the side of Sawyer's left knee, forcing a bellow of agony from the man's mouth. Only then did he dismount to check on his partner. She rose like a wraith, blood streaking her face and arms to lean glassy-eyed against the wall, Beretta still in hand and pointed at William Brady where he lay on the ground. With grim satisfaction Clint saw that she had shot out both of his knee caps.

"Nat?" he didn't like the expression on her face, the way her eyes weren't tracking anything around her. "Romanoff!" He climbed painfully to his feet, injured leg threatening to fold under him and moved towards her. She swayed before he reached her, sliding down the wall with a grimace of pain on her face, one hand pressed to her side where blood seeped between her fingers. Numbly he realised what it all meant, Brady had been holding two knives, the one at her throat and another which had stabbed into her lower abdomen during the struggle. "Shit, Nat how bad is it?" he asked, crouching at her side, trying to pull her fingers away so that he could see the wound better.

"Had worse," she replied breathlessly. The hell she had, she could barely breathe around the pain and the entire area around the wound was saturated with fresh blood that shone in the dim light.

Behind him, Sawyer saw the opportunity to make a break for it and he took it, hauling himself to his feet and running for the door, moving without coördination because of that injured knee. Clint turned his head, following the movement, indecision freezing him in place. Natasha was his priority, she was always his first concern. Her gaze followed the movement too, then flicked to Brady who lay writhing on the floor a few feet away, unarmed and lost in a haze of pain. His gaze locked with hers and he saw the decision that she had made. "Go," she told him, "I can handle things here, just... just finish it. Don't let him get away."

He wanted to argue but he couldn't deny her anything and she knew it. They had come to New Mexico knowing the risks. They had come to finish what had started in this very room months earlier. A single tear spilled over her cheek and he wiped it away, forcing her eyes to meet his. "I'll be back," he promised her. Natasha nodded, just once but it was an acknowledgement and he would take it. "Hold on."

His leg should have hurt a lot more than it did but adrenaline was a wonderful thing. With a couple of running steps he clambered through the remains of the viewing window and into the office, snatching his bow from the floor where it had fallen during the fighting and grabbing a pair of arrows from the quiver that had been pulled from his shoulders. He skidded out into the hallway, feet slipping in the congealing blood that surrounded Sawyer's accomplice on the floor and took off down the hall at a run. The thought of Natasha in that room, undefended and bleeding, added wings to his heels as he closed the distance between himself and the man he was chasing.

Rounding a bend in the tunnel, he noticed that it had straightened out. Sawyer was ahead of him, his pace slowing as he dragged that injured leg behind him, eyes fixed on the stairway that lay ahead and paying no attention to what might be pursuing him from behind. He had probably gambled that Clint would stay at Natasha's side, he had lost. Raising the bow and knocking an arrow, he stared down his target, knowing that this shot counted more to him even than the one he had levelled at Loki during the battle for New York. Letting out a steadying breath, he let the arrow fly, watching as it cut through the air and plunged into Sawyers back. He stumbled a couple of steps further and fell, Clint didn't doubt his aim for a second. He didn't waste his time checking whether the man was dead; if he was still alive, he wasn't going anywhere.

Calling for immediate backup and a medevac team, he returned to the holding room. Natasha hadn't moved, still propped up against the tiled wall with a hand pressed to the wound in her side. Brady lay on his back, still breathing, whimpering, but unable to move away because of his shattered legs and injured right arm. As he dropped to one knee at her side, he fought to hold back the rising tide of his emotions. They had known the risks when they had set out on this mission together but Natasha had achieved something so few women in her position could claim, she had achieved something close to divine justice. The Black Widow had secured her reputation.

He would help her to get the closure she needed if it was the last thing in this world she ever did.

With tears in his eyes, he pulled the gun from her hand, placing his dagger in her blood slicked palm where her fingers closed around it instinctively. Green eyes met his own and he knew that she understood what he was offering her, he felt that connection between them once again in his bones and blood. Carefully, he moved her around until he held her in his arms, lifting her and holding her against his chest just like he had when he had carried her from this complex all those weeks ago. She cried out, fighting against the pain that he had inadvertently caused by moving her but bit her lip to swallow the sound. His own pain no longer mattered, he would have carried her until the last breath left his body if that was what it took.

When they were within range, he lowered her to the floor again, holding her upright. Brady watched them, breath heaving in and out of his chest, not understanding what was going on. Blood had pooled beneath him. Natasha gathered her strength, adopting a two-handed hold on the dagger handle, raising it so that it was above his heart. Brady saw what was coming and tried to get one of his hands up to deflect the blow. Barton moved quickly, determined that she wouldn't be robbed of the justice she was due. Using his own strength to pin Brady's arms to the ground and stop him twisting out of her path, he gave her the target she needed.

Staring down at him coldly, she swept the blade down with all the strength she had left. It was just enough. Brady bucked in his grip, screaming, trying to escape the pain and getting nowhere. Natasha's eyes burned into him, such hatred in that stare that Clint himself would have recoiled from it had it been aimed at him. Pulling the blade from Brady's chest, she looked up at him, tears balancing on the razors edge of her control as her strength faded and she sank back against him. "It's over..." she whispered,"... we did it."

He caught her before she hit the ground, hoisting her up into his arms and cradling her once again to his chest. The walk along the hallways was torturous, his injured leg threatening to buckle under their combined weight with every step. Time seemed to slow around him as if allowing him the moment to adjust to all that had changed and what was yet to come. As he carried her once again out of her own private hell, cradling her as gently as he could, her head tucked beneath his chin as it had been when she had slept curled into his side, he pondered the weight of deeds done in an instant and the ramifications that could last a lifetime. Tears fell unhindered, landing on Natasha's face and mingling with the blood that still glittered under the security lighting. This moment, these events, would be ones that he carried for the rest of his life.

He made it up the stairs into the warehouse by sheer force of will, determination alone keeping him on his feet. He wouldn't leave her there, no matter the cost he would get her out into the night where the air was clean and the memories couldn't harm either of them any more than they already had.

Blood trickled down his leg, pooling in the sand as it seeped over the top of his boot as he stared up into the night sky. Search lights lit the sky, helicopters closing in on their location, bringing the doctors who would do what they could for her. His leg gave way beneath him and he fell, landing heavily on his knees, the impact reverberating through his body like a wrecking ball. He swallowed a scream, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

They found him on his knees in the sand, empty eyed, his partner's limp body slumped in his arms, whispering Russian words to her that nobody else could understand. The doctors had to pull her away from him, his fingers slipping in the blood that covered them both as they separated them.

"Agent Barton?" one of the containment team looked down at him, waiting for a report, waiting for orders. Standard procedure, they wanted to know what to do about the site. They needed to know whether there were any survivors. "What should we do about the facility?"

With a pained grunt he staggered back to his feet, swaying slightly until he adjusted his balance. The pain in his leg, no longer numbed by adrenaline, made black spots dance over his vision but he stayed upright, ready to follow Natasha as they carried her away. He'd been at her side throughout the terror that had led her back here, he had no intention of leaving her now.

He didn't recognise the sound of his own voice when he responded, there was too much emotion in it, too many horrors fighting to escape in the words that he spoke. He put as much authority into as he could. "Burn it."


	26. Chapter 26

Death was predictable, eventually coming to everyone, and every single agent at SHIELD had walked its shadow at some point during their career. One step in another direction, one seconds delay in ducking behind cover and almost any of them could have had their name added to the list of fallen agents that adorned the foyer of their headquarters. Death was messy and it was usually painful, both for the victim and for the people they left behind.

Once again a section of the medical wing had been closed off to prevent others from trying to find out what was happening within. The rumours had started to circulate the moment that they had been brought in and staff had caught a glimpse of Barton's ravaged face as he limped alongside the gurney carrying his partner.

Though nobody knew the whole truth of where they had been or what they had done, it didn't take long for some of the truth to seep out. Details leaked from the extraction team, stories of bodies found within the halls of a compound in the deserts of New Mexico, rumours that others associated with the same group had been executed in other locations around the country. The fact that Fury and Hill slapped those who had went to collect them with silence orders only added fuel to the fire.

When Natasha Romanoff finally opened her eyes, almost seventy-two hours after being air lifted out of the deserts of New Mexico, she did so with the certainty that the whiteness of her surroundings signified some sort of limbo between life and death. It took a few seconds before she realised that she was in a clinic and that the light that surrounded her came from the lamps around her bed rather than a conjured image of the afterlife. She felt like hell, pain and nausea competing for airtime as she tried to remember what had happened.

Somewhere nearby monitors beeped and chirped, and to the left she heard the familiar snapping sound of surgical gloves but exhaustion prevented her from being overly concerned about it. Experimentally, she tried to shift her position but found that she couldn't. Pain and dizziness assaulted her and a pair of familiar, steady brown eyes appeared in her line of vision. On the surface Carter's expression was calm, unflappable, but Natasha saw through it to the relief that lay beneath. She'd had the doctor worried. Memory returned as pain flared in her abdomen, making it difficult to draw a good breath. She had been stabbed during her fight with William Brady, she remembered the burning agony of the wound and the blood that had stained her hands. It felt like someone had parked a car in her stomach, a rusty car with sharp edges.

"Try not to move," Carter advised, voice calm. "You have no idea how hard I had to work to find that bleeder in your gut and fix it, I'm not about to let you tear it open again."

There was genuine warmth in the doctor's voice and Natasha found herself relieved to find herself under her care rather than the care of one of the others who frequented SHIELD's infirmary. They had reached a stage in their doctor patient relationship where should could admit that she trusted the woman's judgement and almost considered her a friend. Carter was also the only one who knew the full story of Natasha's recent medical history. "Barton?" she asked, voice emerging as a breathless whisper. She didn't need to elaborate, Carter knew exactly what she wanted to know.

With an inclination of her head she drew Natasha's gaze to the left where another bed had been set up. Clint was asleep, or possibly unconscious, amid the blankets, his injured leg protruding from the covers and elevated by a sling. His face was turned toward hers as if he had fallen asleep watching her and though his eyes were closed he looked far from restful, if anything he looked like he had lived beyond the limits of his endurance for some time. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes and a slight frown possessed his features. She didn't like the pallor of his skin, which made his bruises stand out sharply, and she was concerned by the slight sheen of perspiration that clung to his brow, but the sight of him made her the pain in her chest ease a little. The monitors around the bed chirped, alerting the room to a spike in her heart rate, her emotions broadcast to the room. She might have cut her treacherous heart out of her chest if only she'd had the means to do it within reach. If the doctor understood the real meaning of the reaction, she wasn't saying anything which further proved to Natasha that Dr Carter was a wise woman indeed.

"He's okay," Carter assured her, "though you've both been in the wars."

Natasha tried to remember that night in the compound but there were gaps in the memory, details that she couldn't remember. She frowned, searching for the memories that were missing but coming up blank. Images danced on the edge of her memory, vague and elusive, before slipping away again. How had they gotten out of the building? "I don't remember," she admitted, hearing the slight edge of fear in her voice. She'd always hated having gaps in her memory, it made her feel vulnerable and too like the half feral woman who had escaped from the Red Room.

"Barton carried you out," Carter explained, "he's been right here the whole time you've been out, a real pain in my ass, refused to let us treat him until he knew that you'd made it through the surgery..." The good-natured exasperation in the doctor's eyes would have drawn a smile to Natasha's lips if she could have summoned the strength to form one. "As for what happened before the team arrived to pick you up, you'll have to ask him."

"His leg?" she asked, worried that accompanying her while injured might have caused him long-term damage.

Carter chuckled, checking the dosage on the IV that was attached to Natasha's arm. "She codes twice on the table and she's worried about her partner..." With a shake of her head, she looked back to her patient. "He'll be fine, no long-term damage. He would have been fine if he hadn't taken a screwdriver hit, we had to operate to remove the tip of the blade from the muscle. He's been under light sedation to make sure that he stays in bed. Putting you both in the same room was the only way I could get him to stay put long enough for the muscle to heal, couple of days and he'll be back on his feet."

While the doctor worked, Natasha listened to the chirping of the machines that were monitoring her vitals and breathed around the pain that hovered on the edges of her awareness. Other doctors would have insisted on separating them but Carter had known that the only thing that had kept Natasha going in recent months was the support of the man in the next bed, she alone would appreciate the strength of the ties that bound them. She had seen and commented on their connection to one another and had utilised it to make sure that she gave them both the best chance of healing. Giving them Carter as their medic had been a stroke of genius, she wondered who she had to thank for it.

Eyelids fluttering, Natasha realised that she couldn't stay awake much longer. There were answers that she needed before she lost consciousness again. "How long was I out?" she asked, feeling the tide of sleep beginning to pull her under. Idly she wondered whether it was a natural pull or whether the doctor had given her something that was helping her along. She didn't fight it, sleep was a powerful tool for the regeneration of the human body and she wanted to be up and out of the infirmary as soon as humanly possible.

"It's been three days," Carter replied, "but part of that was medically induced. Any movement could have potentially torn the sutures I put in place, we couldn't risk another bleed. I've been close by the entire time, seems Hill has assigned me to the pair of you. All of your medical needs are mine to deal with from this point forward, something about the pair of you traumatising the other doctors..."

Carter's hand came to rest on Natasha's shoulder, her expression one of mild amusement. Natasha found her eyes growing heavier. She got the distinct impression that the doctor didn't consider handling two of SHIELD's most reluctant patients to be a hardship. She was certain that having someone like Carter as their physician would make her trips to medical a lot more tolerable. "Don't fight it Natasha, your body needs time to recuperate," Carter told her, giving her shoulder a squeeze before letting go. "Sleep, I'll be keeping watch over you both."


	27. Chapter 27

_Okay, after all the suffering we needed a little bit of fluff - just to give them a break from the angst of previous chapters. Lots of feelings involved here and quite draining for me to write, I must have redrafted this five or six times so if there are mistakes I apologise unreservedly._

_Sandy-wmd: I'm not sure whether the staff get hazard pay but I'm pretty sure that they should, treating one of these two would be difficult enough. Points to Carter for figuring out how to do it with minimal destruction to her infirmary..._

_As always, I'd love to know what you think. _

* * *

Drifting in and out of consciousness, aware that time was passing her by but unable to make any sense of it, Natasha focussed all the energy she could muster on her recovery. Though her eyelids were sometimes just too heavy to lift, she grew accustomed to the sounds and smells of the medical wing. Once or twice she thought she heard Clint's voice but she couldn't find her voice to reply when he spoke to her or the strength to open her eyes . When she did manage to open her eyelids briefly, he was almost always asleep. She knew that he was okay, trusted that Carter was looking after him, and that was the one and only reason that she allowed herself the rest that her body so badly needed.

When she finally opened her eyes again, she found that it was day, bright sunlight streaming in through the window to pool on her bed. After the dark places in which she had spent the months since her captivity, the warmth was welcome, bringing back memories of the days spent in the Iowa sunshine when Clint had taken her out to his cabin. Clint. Turning her head to look for him, she found his bed empty, freshly made, corners perfectly folded and pillows plumped. Panic flared within her, her brain searching desperately for some indication that her conversation with the doctor had been real and not merely a drug induced hallucination or figment of her scattered mind.

Adrenaline pumping, she forced herself upright, pausing on the edge of the mattress to catch her breath and give the room a chance to stop spinning around her. She clutched her side with one hand, trying to ease the sudden pain that bloomed there and finding the bulk of a surgical dressing beneath her hospital gown. The needle in the back of her hand was attached to a bag of something that hung from a rail above her bed, much as she would have liked to remove it from her vein, she knew that whatever it was her body probably needed it. With shaking fingers she removed the blood pressure monitor from her finger and disconnected the electrodes that monitored her heart rate. Machines shrieked with high-pitched alarms as their readings disappeared.

Taking a moment to gather her strength, she slipped off the edge of the bed and let her legs absorb her own body weight, thankful that her knees didn't give way beneath her. It was the work of a moment to silence the alarms, a sharp yank on the power cord working more quickly than figuring out the controls. While she waited for her heart rate to return to something approaching normal, she gripped the metal bed frame hard enough to bruise her palms. She was reaching up to unhook the bag of fluids from the rail, intending to carry it until she found a walker pole that she could hang it from or a member of staff, whichever she encountered first, when the door behind her opened and she became aware of another presence in the room.

"Going somewhere?"

Her head turned so quickly that she momentarily lost her balance, hands shooting out to grab the bed until her legs would take her weight again. Clint stood just inside the doorway, barefoot and casually dressed in track pants and a black wife beater. He had a pair of crutches balanced beneath his arms and an expression of slight amusement on his face. It felt like forever since she had last laid eyes on him and she drank in the sight of him unashamedly. Without stopping to consider whether it was a smart move or not, she headed toward him. Her legs promptly gave way beneath her. His quick movement across the space between them was the only thing that stopped her from hitting the floor, one arm wrapping around her waist and absorbing her weight by pulling her against him until she regained her balance.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him, breathless again. The pain in her side throbbed in time with her heartbeat and she started to appreciate that it probably would have been better to take it more slowly after who knew how many days flat on her back in bed.

"Really, that's what you're going with?" he asked, throwing aside one of his crutches and walking slowly back to the bed with her held tightly to his side. His body heat seeped into her, easing the aches that shimmered in her muscles, giving her the strength to stay on her feet long enough to cooperate as he led her back where she needed to go.

"Carter said that you needed surgery on your leg..."

"I'm healing fine," he told her, "the crutches are just a precaution, Doc would have discharged me a couple of days ago if she thought for a second that I'd leave. She's ... well I can see why you like her, she's our kind of medic, knows when to pick her battles."

Searching his face, she saw concern and determination but found no hint that he was hiding anything. As his gaze met her own she realised that she knew the man before her down to his bones and blood, that they could touch the very foundations of one another when they did nothing more than stand in the same place. He helped her up onto the mattress and helped her to lie down, staying close while the world wavered around her once more. Perching on the edge of her bed with only the slightest sign of discomfort when he settled at her side. His palm found hers and the weight and warmth of his touch soothed her, the connection between them easing her in a way that all of the drugs in the infirmary could not. "How are you?"

"Sore," she admitted, "I guess its been a day or so since my conversation with the doctor?"

"Two," he replied automatically. "Gave us all a scare Nat, I was there when your heart stopped during surgery, you'd lost over half of your blood volume... thought you were going to up and die on me, scariest moment of my life."

She hadn't realised that he'd been present during her surgery, that he'd heard the monitors announce that her heart had stopped. She saw the haunted look in his eyes and realised that she couldn't imagine what it must have been like for him to see her on the table during that kind of emergency. She couldn't even get close to thinking about him in that position, her brain wouldn't even let her go there in the hypothetical.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, looking up at him, determined to get the words out before she lost her nerve. "I'm sorry that you saw that and for everything else that I put you through during the last three months. I'm sorry that you had to save me, that I invaded your home and your bed, that you had to see and hear all that you did. You put your life on hold, put me first every step of the way. You gave me Brady, helped me to finish it because you knew that it was what I needed. You've always done right by me, never stopped once to count the cost of what you were giving me, there's no way that I can ever repay you for what you've done but ..."

It was probably the longest speech she had ever made in one of the quiet moments that they so often shared. She saw the momentary flash of surprise, caught a hint of something deeper that flickered through his eyes and was promptly shut away. His finger landed over her lips, cutting off her words. His eyes burned into her own. "No apologies Nat," he told her, "I gave what I gave without reservation and without regret and if I had to I'd do it all over again, every minute of it."

Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes as she absorbed the full meaning of his words. In those moments when she had been separated from him in the compound, moments when she had believed however briefly that he was dead, she had been shattered apart and remade in an instant but she had been incomplete. Hearing that whistle in the dark, she had found the strength that she needed to fight on, knowing that he was still alive had given her the strength that all of her anger could not. Their lives had always been connected by duty and friendship but after all they had been through they were now so entwined with one another that Natasha realised she no longer knew where she ended and he began. It perturbed her only slightly to realise that she wouldn't have it any other way.

"Clint," she whispered, struggling, drowning. Feeling like she'd taken a blow to the chest, she let out a shaky breath. Sometimes she realised, in spite of the sense of suffocation and the terror that they induced, words had to be said aloud if they were to count for anything. "I don't believe in fairy tales, not the good kind anyway, but I do believe that this thing we have, whatever it is or may be, is a once in a lifetime kind of deal." She paused, exhaled and forced the rest of it out before she couldn't. "I love you Clint. You're my partner and my best friend and my only solace and I'd give my life in a heartbeat to keep you safe, I just wanted you to know that."

She dropped her head, another tear rolling down her face to drip onto the bedding, terrified of what she'd said and how he would react, waiting for a response. All that she could do was continue to breathe and at that moment even that was easier said than done when her lungs seemed to be filling up with concrete as the seconds dragged on in silence.

Just when she thought that she couldn't stand it any longer, when she was sure that she was going to have to apologise and find some way to take back the words, he responded. With a gentle nudge he moved her across the mattress to make room for himself at her side, using his hands to support his injured leg as he lifted it. Settling beside her, he stretched out an arm above her head and when she raised off the pillow he slipped it beneath her so that his upper arm and shoulder became her pillow. As he rolled onto his side, she turned her face towards his and felt the tension ease out of his muscles. Letting go of the breath that she hadn't realised she was holding, she breathed him in, the scent of him taking her back to all the nights they had spent side by side, close enough to share every breath.

"Never thought I'd hear you say that out loud," he admitted, gathering her to his chest and holding her gently, breath skating across her skin with every word and breath, "but I know exactly what you mean."


	28. Chapter 28

Though he could have left the medical bay and returned to the relative comfort of his own quarters, the thought of leaving her for longer than the thirty minutes he spent in physio every day was abhorrent to him. Barton remained at her side, whether that meant sitting in the chair at her bedside while they played board games or curling his body around hers on the bed when she slept. The only person who didn't seem frustrated by his steadfast refusal to leave her was the doctor, Carter, who simply accepted his devotion to his partner and did what she could to make them both as comfortable as possible.

When Natasha took her first authorised steps since the surgery, Carter encouraged him to be part of the process claiming that it would give her an opportunity to stand back and observe the process, claiming that it sometimes helped to be on the outside of a situation. That wasn't the real reason and they both knew it but nobody was quite ready to acknowledge the elephant in the room. He appreciated her discretion almost as much as he appreciated her medical expertise.

It was slightly alien to provide a steadying arm to the strongest woman he had ever met, even stranger when he acknowledged just how much she'd had to lean on him as they took a turn around the room. Despite the slow pace and the baby steps that were taken, by the time they made it back to the bed he knew that she was exhausted.

"How do you feel?" Carter asked, stepping up to the bedside and helping Natasha up onto the mattress. With efficient motions she checked the healing wound in her patients side for signs of strain. "Any pain?"

"Getting vertical was a bit of a challenge," Natasha admitted. In recent days it seemed that she had gone past the point of concealing her discomfort; it was apparent that whatever bond had formed between doctor and patient in the weeks before they left to track her attackers was deep enough for her to inspire frank honesty. She was still uncomfortable in medical surroundings but she hadn't been fighting as hard as usual to get out. "Now I just feel like I've run a marathon or maybe like I've been hit by a bus."

Obviously he wasn't the only one who noticed the concern in his partner's expression because the doctor moved quickly to reassure her. "It's perfectly normal to feel that way, you've been in bed for almost a week. Your body will adjust once you're back on your feet but you'll have to take things more slowly than you're used to."

"Can she get out of bed when she feels strong enough?" he asked, already contemplating the things he would be wanting to do if it were his ass that had been planted in a recovery room bed for days. He had been confined for seventy-two hours and it had almost killed him, people like them weren't built for sitting around. As soon as he'd been able he'd been out of bed and wandering the hallways, his leg was healing just fine as long as he didn't work it too hard.

Carter smiled and nodded, glancing at him before returning her attention to the woman on the bed between them. "I'd recommend it actually, just as long as there's someone around. Short walks like the one you've done today will help you to get steady on your feet again, build up a little bit of strength. As long as you listen to your body and don't overdo things, you can move around and start trying to rebuild your strength."

When Carter left them alone, he remained by the side of her bed, reading the tiny micro expressions that spoke of her frustration at being held to ransom by her body's need to take things slowly. "You need anything?" he asked, prepared to leave the bubble of the infirmary and face the enquiring glances of just about every other agent on base if there was a particular food she wanted or even something as simple as her own clothes.

Natasha turned her gaze to him and he found himself once again trying not to think about the words she'd said when she was half dosed on morphine. He hadn't mentioned the conversation they'd had; neither had she. That didn't mean that he hadn't thought about it. Sometimes those words she had spoken were all he could think about. Right now though there were more pressing concerns, like getting her well enough to get her out of the infirmary and somewhere more comfortable where she could continue her recovery. "I would kill for some hot water right about now," she told him, turning her gaze toward the door to the adjoining bathroom.

He didn't need to ask to know that a warm shower would do more to make her feel human right now than almost anything else would. Without a word he went to the bathroom, turned on the spray and busied himself setting out what she might need on the counter beside the sink. Once he was happy that he'd covered all the bases, he returned to the recovery room and found her sitting on the edge of the bed, feet dangling six or seven inches above the floor. "Ready?" he asked, taking position in front of her and easing her onto her feet, for a second they didn't move, just letting her find her balance. He waited until she indicated that she was ready to continue before they started to move.

With one hand at her waist and the other extended as a crutch for her to hold onto, they moved slowly across the room. The air was already beginning to feel humid when they reached the bathroom door, the mirror above the sink fogged over. As soon as she was able to use the door frame for support she reached out and killed the overhead lights, leaving the room bathed in the soft glow of the night lights.

"I don't need to see what I look like right now," she explained when she caught his questioning look. Words leapt into his mouth, assurances that she looked fine and she had nothing to worry about, but he kept them inside. No matter how he thought she looked, and for someone who had survived major blood loss and emergency surgery she looked great, she would see things differently.

He waited patiently while she found her balance, releasing his arm so that she could grab onto one of the rails that ran around the edge of the bathroom. "Just yell when you're done if you want me to help you back to bed," he told her with a smile, stepping back toward the open door. Her hand shot out, faster than he would have thought possible, fingers closing tightly around his wrist before he got out of reach.

"I'm not sure that I can do this on my own," she admitted, keeping her eyes averted. "My balance is shot and I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to stay upright in there." With a tilt of her head she indicated the shower stall in the corner. "Will you... help me? Please."

Any physical movement in proportion to the internal reeling that accompanied her request would have left him needing a neck brace. He wasn't sure why it felt so different this time when he had thought nothing of climbing into the shower to collect her that night in his apartment. Hell, they'd seen almost every inch of each other at some point in their time as partners. She could have asked the doctor, any of the nurses, but instead she asked him. This was a medical situation, she needed the help and she trusted him to give it. Even more importantly, he could see the longing in her eyes when she looked at the falling water behind the glass. For all of those reasons and more he couldn't say no.

He left her alone to take care of her private needs, waiting outside the door until she let him know that she was ready. When he stepped back inside he found her leaning against the counter, body wrapped in one of the large white bath towels that he had left out for her. The towel and the lighting drained all of the colour from her features, making her hair look a spill of fresh blood around her shoulders. Stripping down to his boxers, he reached for her arm and helped her across the bathroom and into the shower stall.

Closing the door and shutting them in together, he kept a light grip on her arm to help her maintain her balance while trying to keep distance between their bodies. Though they had been sleeping curled around one another for days now, there was a significant difference to being clothed in a bed and unclothed in a darkened room. He did _not_ want to do anything that might make her feel awkward about the request. He felt some of the tension ease from her frame as she tilted her face up to the hot water and used his strength to support her as she listed to the side slightly. "Guess I can't stand up and look up at the same time," she laughed, "washing my hair should be fun."

"Let me help," his hands shook as he eased her carefully toward the wall and out of the spray. Gently manoeuvring her so that she could use both hands to maintain her balance, he reached for the shampoo and lathered up the lengths of her hair, noticing that beneath the water its fiery red became a deeper brown. When he was done with the shampoo he helped her to step backwards so that she could reach the soap and concentrated on keeping her upright while she cleaned herself up.

When they emerged from the shower stall a few minutes later, it felt like they had been in there an hour. He kept his eyes averted until she had wrapped the towel around herself again, making herself a makeshift dress out of the fabric, and then left her holding onto the hand rail while he wrapped a towel around his hips. He helped her to dry off, encouraging her to lean against the counter while he patted the lingering droplets of water off her skin. The warm water had brought a rosy glow to her skin and she looked better, more like herself than she had in days.

"Well that was new," she chuckled as he pushed open the bathroom door and light flooded into the room, "never had nurse maid down as one of your skill sets." He knew that she was only playing with him, that she needed to make a joke of the situation in order to stop it becoming too real, too heavy, and that was the exact reason that he didn't let the remark go without comment.

"Don't get used to it Nat," he grumbled, escorting her back to the bed. "Once you're back on your feet you're gonna have some serious making up to do for all of this. Nurse maid my ass." Once she was up on the bed and settled, he pulled the sheet over her and stepped back, handing her a comb. "I'm going to get dressed and run up to your quarters and grab some of your clothes, anything in particular that you want?"

She thought about it for a second, "nothing too fitted, maybe yoga pants, pyjamas and that black shirt that I like, you know the one..."

She was sitting up in bed talking to Maria Hill when he returned a short time later. Somehow he'd managed to avoid just about everyone who wanted to know how they were both doing on his way up to the staff quarters and on the way back so he wasn't really expecting to find anyone in the room but Natasha and possibly the doctor on his return. Since they'd been admitted, Carter had managed to keep everyone out, turning the infirmary into a kind of bubble where it had been just the two of them and all the questions had been about medical issues so the deputy director's presence was both unexpected and slightly unwelcome. It had been nice to not have to think about the outside world and just be able to focus on getting better, not just for him if Nat's expression was anything to go by.

Hill turned to look at him as he stepped into the room, arms filled with his partner's clothing. She offered him a smile. "Barton," she acknowledged, "I'm here at Director Fury's request to ask you about New Mexico."

As his gaze ticked automatically to Natasha's, checking in, he noticed that all of the colour had drained from her face. Her hands were clenched in the bedding, eyes flat and cold. "I filed a report about New Mexico," he replied, turning his attention back to his superior.

Hill sighed, looking awkward. She didn't want to be there, that much was obvious. "And we read it," she told him evenly, "but the board are asking questions about what happened out there and why two of our best assets were able to go out on a revenge mission without their approval. They want to know what isn't in the report. They want to know everything about Natasha's time in captivity, field reports, medical files, sworn statements..."

"There's nothing to tell, you know that." Natasha's voice was cold, emotionless. "You should know better than most that there is absolutely nothing to tell about the days I spent in that compound."

The room seemed to be spinning around him as he processed the anger that suddenly seemed to be igniting in his veins. How dare the board demand details about what happened to her! Surely Hill and Fury weren't about to give in to a bunch of faceless directors that they'd never met. A glance at Maria told him that they had no intention of handing over anything without a fight. "What are you saying?" he asked.

"Fury and I are stalling as best we can," she told them, "I have Carter working on an amended version of your medical files, she won't let anything highly confidential out but some details will have to be included to make them believable. The best solution that we can see is for the two of you to be unavailable for questioning about the incident..."

"Unavailable," Natasha looked at him and he saw the guarded hope that flared in her gaze. "You're telling us to run?"

"We're suggesting that the pair of you take an extended leave of absence to recover from your injuries," Hill explained, voice hushed despite the fact that they were alone in the infirmary. "Carter is working on putting together the supplies you'll need to recover without her continued care. My suggestion is that you get the hell out of here and go somewhere quiet, somewhere off the grid where nobody will look for you until the Director and I figure this out."

"How long do we have?" he asked, knowing that it was only a matter of time before someone was sent to collect the information personally.

Hill shook her head, indicating that she didn't really know the answer. "My advice here is to get her the hell out of here Barton while you can. I'll find a way to reach you when things have blown over."

Barton's eyes met Natasha's, mind already turning over the possibilities, and he knew exactly where they had to go. If they left at first light they could be there by lunch time, settled in and comfortable by night fall. She knew where they were going too, he could see it in her eyes. "We'll be gone by morning," he promised. "I know just where to go."


	29. Chapter 29

_"Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet" - Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I appreciate your patience very much. _

_I apologise in advance for the cliffhanger but this seemed like the best place to cut off for today - my head hurts from trying to channel Natasha in this one. Hope you like._

_Okay, here we go..._

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Natasha woke up screaming, body flailing within the covers. Moonlight shone through the uncovered windows, bathing the bedroom in enough light for her brain to convince her body that she was not back in that basement room. Her hand flew to her side, finding nothing but the fresh red scar that William Brady had gifted her with when last they met. She was not bleeding out in the deserts of New Mexico, she was at the cabin in Iowa with Clint. Her eyes found him in the semi-darkness of the room. He was out of bed, gun aimed at the doorway, ready and able to blow a hole in anything that might come at them, ready to protect her at all costs. Scanning the shadows it took him a long moment to lower the weapon and relax enough to turn back to her.

"Everything okay?" he asked, voice still rough from sleep despite the fact that he was now very obviously awake. There had been more than one instance when she had woken them both with her screams as the memories of what had happened the night she almost died began to surface. At first all she got were flashes and lingering feelings of unease after she woke but lately the images were coming in terrifying detail, leaving her disconnected and unable to separate the nightmares from reality.

Was she okay? At that particular moment the truth was that she wasn't even remotely okay. She was shaken, terrified that she was losing her mind, her heart was racing and her side was aching, but she wasn't about to tell him that. "I'm okay," she replied, still breathing heavily. Rubbing her face, she tried to absorb the reality of where she was and who was in the room with her, as well as who wasn't. "Just another nightmare."

He came back to the bed, the warmth of his body blanketing hers as he settled beside her. She went to him with an ease she had never known with anyone else, letting him wrap her up in the warmth and security of his arms. Clint felt good beneath her, solid, his heat chasing away the cold that settled over her and easing the shivers, he went deeper than that though, he always had, right to the marrow of her bones and the centre of her chest.

"What was it about?" he asked softly, keeping her close. She had no desire to dredge up the past but bottling up her fears and her emotions had done more harm than good the last time she'd tried it. He knew that but Clint was a patient man, he would wait until she was ready to talk.

"It was about New Mexico," she admitted, stroking her hand absently over his arms as she spoke. "A flashback I guess, it makes no sense to me, not really. I just get bits, blood and pain and the feeling that I'm never going to make it out of that room..."

He nodded but didn't press her for details. More than anyone he knew that she didn't want to relive it. Instead she felt his arms tighten around her. "But you did make it out," he told her, "they didn't."

Long after he had drifted off to sleep, arms circling her, she slid out of his embrace and crept out to the kitchen where she brewed a mug of tea and sat at the table. Six weeks without word from Hill was long enough to drive them both to frustration. Neither she nor Clint had been the type to ask for permission or wait for someone to tell them that everything was going to be okay, at least not until they joined SHIELD and became partners. She was sure that the nightmares they had both experienced were the result of the unusual period of calm that they were experiencing. In recent weeks she'd had more time to look at the bigger picture than she'd ever had and more than few quiet moments to examine where she thought they were headed.

Since they'd returned to the cabin, they had fallen into a quiet domesticity that Natasha had never thought she would be able to enjoy. She loved the quiet tranquillity of her surroundings and the ability to heal without the scrutiny of others, but quiet had never been her friend. and it wasn't about to start being so now. The feelings that she had earlier been able to convince herself were somehow connected to leaning on her partner during her recovery were something that she was no longer able to ignore. When she told him from her hospital bed, weeks ago and hundreds of miles away, that she loved him, she hadn't been entirely sure what that meant. Yes she loved him as a friend, he was the only real friend she'd ever had, but somehow it felt like more than that now. She didn't know how or when it had happened but he was under her skin and much to her surprise she liked him there.

Quiet contemplation and a great deal of soul searching had led her on a journey of self discovery that she would have been better off without.

Though they passed their days in relative comfort, spending hours out in the woods hiking, hunting, cooking simple suppers and sharing snippets of information with one another that they rarely shared with anyone, Clint had made no attempt to act upon the opening she had given him that day in medical. At first she had wondered whether he was just giving her time to throw off the damage done by Brady's knife and her near death experience, but now she was slowly coming to realise that perhaps her partner didn't share her feelings.

Pushing her hands through her hair, she stared through the glass and out to the forest behind the cabin, deliberately trying to avoid the disappointment she felt. Belatedly she realised that this was the reason relationships between agents were a bad idea, because when one person loved another and the feeling wasn't returned it was a kind of bitter sweet pain that made it difficult to breathe when they looked at you. He was always there, he always would be, he would have followed her to the ends of the earth if she'd asked him to, without her even needing to ask, but he had become her weakness. Clint Barton, the man she loved, the man who slept beside her when she didn't want to be alone, who fought with her on all fronts without reservation, her voice of reason, had compromised her in a way that nothing else ever had.

She was still in the kitchen, head pillowed on her arms as she dozed, when she heard his voice, distressed mutterings that preceded the yells. There was no thought involved, she simply moved and moved quickly. Clint's nightmares came less frequently than her own but that didn't make them any less powerful. Vaulting up onto the mattress she was there to meet his panicked gaze when his eyes flew open, searching the room for an anchor that would pull him into the present. His eyes landed on her and she heard him breathe out, steadying himself. Natasha wasn't good with comfort, never had been, even if she wanted to say something she would always struggle to find the words. Assuming she could find the right words to say, she didn't know the first thing about voicing them out loud but words weren't necessary here. Both Natasha and Clint were broken, both of them bleeding from wounds that were invisible to others, they understood one another in the way that survivors did and eye contact or touch conveyed so much more than words.

Whatever he had dreamt of, it was bad, she could tell by the way he leaned into her, holding her to him with a ferocity that took her by surprise. Pushing aside all thoughts but ones of comforting him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and waited until his heartbeat slowed, his breath returned to normal. "What was it?" she asked, pulling away from him so that she could see his eyes. His hand found hers, palm calloused and familiar as it squeezed her fingers, grip almost bruising."Clint, what was it?"

Shaking his head slightly, he buried his face in her shoulder. His reluctance to answer told her all that she needed to know. Letting him pull her back against him, she hoped that proximity would be enough to reassure him that she was there and that they were both okay. It was the same as last time and the time before that, memory that had become a nightmare. He had watched her die on the operating table and his unconscious mind liked to replay the image of her bleeding out before his eyes now and again. She wound up in his lap, thighs straddling him, petting him, arms wrapped around his neck while he buried his face in her shoulder, his body trembling with the force of emotions that he could not put into words.

When he finally lifted his head and looked at her, she saw the strength that she loved in him mingled with an exhaustion that tugged at her, making something inside her chest ache. She had known the man in front of her forever or so it seemed, the warmth of his touch against her skin, the subtle shift of colours in his eyes as his mood changed. She trusted him, had done so instinctively since that first moment all those years ago that he had looked into her eyes and asked her if she wanted to live. He had come through for her then and he had never stopped coming through for her. She let her arms slip from his shoulders but kept her fingers linked at the back of his neck, absorbed the feeling of his arms still locked around her waist. The air between them pulsed with an intensity that she couldn't name as they stared at one another, his eyes filled with something that she had not dared to hope for.

"Tasha," his voice was a caress, gentle, barely above a whisper in the still air of the room. She didn't wait for him to continue. She silenced him by pressing a finger to his lips, let her hand slide away to caress his cheek, thumb moving slowly back and forth across the soft skin of his lips. One moment and no other. She watched the colours roiling in his eyes, the usual grey darkening like clouds before a storm and knew that in this moment between them she would have to be the strong one.

Taking a deep breath, she leaned forward, closing the distance between them and pressed a lingering kiss to her partner's lips, something heartfelt and soft, something forbidden, a moment that belonged to them and no other, not to a mission and not to a job that had put them both within the reaches of death a dozen times. She felt his surprise, a stiffening of his muscles that betrayed him, but it passed quickly. He remained motionless beneath her, heart jack-hammering against her fingers where they rested over the arteries in his neck, and then, just as she was about to pull away and admit that she had been right and he didn't want her, he kissed her back.


	30. Chapter 30

_Quick upload - mad busy but aiming to upload the next one by the weekend! Just a continuation of the sweetness from the last chapter but from the other side of the encounter._

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The press of Natasha's mouth against his own was perhaps the last thing he had expected and for a long moment Clint hadn't known how to react. His first instinct was to push her away, put as much distance between them as possible so that she wouldn't see that she was the only weakness he had; his second was to drag her closer. The moment of indecision lasted too long, he could feel the change in her as she prepared to move away from him and that was what made the decision for him. Though he knew it would have been more sensible to move away from her, it was Natasha and he just couldn't do it.

Keeping his arms wrapped loosely around her waist, he tilted his face up to meet hers and felt velvet softness, warmth and anxious heat as he absorbed the feeling of her lips on his. He brushed his lips against hers gently, once, twice, before being a little more firm. Pausing to gage her reaction and finding no objection, he deepened their kiss, coaxing her into opening up for him. Languidly their tongues duelled with one another, learning every corner, every taste, every movement, Natasha's hands rising to tangle in his hair as he pulled her closer to him.

Warring with his desires, he forced himself to take things slowly, conscious of all that she had been through and wary of pushing too fast in this new evolution of their relationship. He traced the delicate bones of her spine with his fingertips, aware that beneath the deceptive fragility was the strongest woman he has ever known. Natasha shifted in his lap, sighing into his mouth as his hands explored the contours of her back and wound their way into the length of her hair, and he caught fire, restraining his sudden urge to flip her over and cover her body with his own. He kissed her instead as though he could draw life from her mouth, as though it were the single most important thing he had ever done.

It felt like a moment, it felt like forever, before she pulled back to look at him. Barton drank in the image of her face, lids half lowered, cheeks flushed, features painted with streaks of sensuality that made her seem somehow lovelier. Foreheads touching, they leaned in to one another, breathing each other in and coming to terms with what had just happened.

Natasha's eyes opened fully, their gazes colliding iron-grey and green. The world seemed to stand still around him as their gazes locked in surprise at the sudden connection. Then she smiled and he felt his own lips curl in response.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time," he confessed, stroking her hair.

She laughed, a throaty chuckle that did nothing for his resolve to take things slowly. "I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind," she whispered. She didn't sound like the Natasha he knew and he realised that he was seeing yet another hidden facet of her personality, one that she guarded carefully and had only now chosen to reveal a glimpse of.

He wasn't sure how to voice his concern about taking things slowly but he needn't have worried, this was Natasha, she'd always been able to read him better than anyone and perhaps she felt the same way. Lacing her fingers with his own, she moved to lie at his side, urging him to lie beside her. Her head came to rest on his chest, hand resting over his heart. Without thinking, he curled his arm around her, holding her to him, stroking the soft skin of her arm.

After a long moment of silence, he sighed. "You're sure?" he asked, afraid of the answer but knowing that the question had to be asked. They had been through so much in recent months that he wasn't sure either of them could take another blow and if this went wrong, if one of them screwed this up, there was more to lose than just a couple of nights sleep.

Natasha nodded, fingers tightening in his. "I don't ..." she sighed, struggling to find the words she needed. "Just take it slow and we'll figure it out."

He nodded his agreement, content to let her take the lead. Tilting her face up toward his own, he turned his face and planted a soft kiss on her mouth. As she settled against him, relaxing into the curve of his arm, the heat of her seeping into him, he told himself that he had waited years for them to make this step and he would wait as long as she wanted before they took the next one. One step at a time, one day at a time. He pulled her closer, needing to feel the realness of her against him and took his first real breath in months. With the smell of her shampoo in his nose and the solid warmth of her in his arms, he slept.


	31. Chapter 31

_Got a bit of anxiety going on over this one ... wanted to do this justice but it's had my head battered and I'm not sure how it's turned out. Little bit smuttier than what is already out there but I did hold back a little. __I'd love to know what you think. ** _If you don't like sex scenes don't read.**

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"Aren't we meant to be hunting?" she murmured between kisses, amusement in her voice.

Smiling against her mouth, Barton let his hands trail up the length of her arms, fingertips brushing the soft fabric of the flannel shirt she was wearing. The shirt was his and too big for her, the neckline open to show just a glimpse of the black bra that she wore beneath it. His hands were responsible for the opening of some of those buttons, spurred on by Natasha's legs wrapping around his waist and pinning him in place against her. The movement of her tongue against his own was all the distraction he had needed to ensure that they never made it further than the foot of the porch steps. "Oh I am," he murmured.

It wasn't their first kiss. In recent days there had been probably a hundred kisses at least, some tender and gentle others that left them both aching and breathless, but they hadn't let things get much further than that, not while she was still healing. They'd agreed to take things slowly but it was proving more difficult than he had ever imagined. Spending every night so close together that they shared every breath and knowing that what was unfolding between them was mutual and not just a one way desire made it hard for his to keep his hands off her.

"Looks like you caught me," she whispered, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth, arms winding around his neck. He could feel the strength in her body, knew the thrill of feeling those death grip thighs around his waist as well as the satisfaction of knowing that he was the reason for the slight flush on her skin. She arched her body between his own and the support post at her back, pressing herself against him in all the right places. "So what now?"

He had a hundred potential answers for her, all of which ended in her body pressed beneath his own and the nearest flat surface but he wanted to do things properly. "Light's failing, we should probably delay this trip until sunrise ..."

"Uh huh," her response was a husky murmur, breathed directly into his mouth and he knew that this kiss was different to the ones that had come before it. Were they really ready for where they were headed? There would be no taking it back once it was done, their lives as they had known them forever altered. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin their friendship, their partnership, by thinking with his dick.

"You trust me, right Nat?" he asked, tracing his lips along the line of her jaw to nibble at the sensitive spot beneath her ear that he had discovered the night before.

"With my life," she answered, no thought, no hesitation. Awed by the trust that she placed in him, he lifted her up, balancing her weight easily in his arms and carried her back up the steps and into the cabin, heading straight for the bedroom. Long suppressed heat coiled deep in his stomach, temperature rising, skin hypersensitive to every movement of her body beneath his own, as he pressed her down on the mattress of what he was rapidly coming to think of as their bed.

Mouths fusing in a kiss that seared his nerve endings, they pulled at buttons and zips and fastenings. Barton moved slowly, harnessing the impatience which suddenly took hold of him, savouring the moment as he revealed inch after inch of her skin. She wasn't passive, far from it, the movement of her body was pushing him past the point of reason, past the point of thinking. The knowledge froze him, stilling his hands. He tensed, trying to force back the chemical surge of desire that thundered through his veins and muscles, primitive instinct demanding that he lay claim to the woman in front of him.

Beneath him she froze, taking in the sudden change in his behaviour and drawing entirely the wrong conclusion. He cursed himself for putting anything approaching doubt in her head when they stood on the precipice of something that they both wanted.

"Nat ... just look at me for a moment, yeah?" even to his own ears his voice was breathless. She did as he asked, pulling back to lay her head on the covers. Their gazes locked, grey and green, darkened by lust and need. "Just want to know that you want this?"

A smile flickered across her lips and she raised a hand to place her palm over his heart. The effect of her touch was instantaneous, five points of fire that burned through him, washing away all doubts about what she wanted. Her hand trailed lower, tracing the muscles of his stomach and travelling lower still until she found what she was looking for, curling her fingers around him and squeezing him gently.

Natasha leaned up and kissed him again, a kiss unlike any of the others that they had shared and yet familiar enough that he knew that what she was giving him was the very essence of herself. Soft and tender, ferocious and desperate all at the same time, all aspects of her personality rolled into the press of her mouth against his own. She kissed him with a desperation that stole his breath and he kissed her back driven by exactly the same need.

Shutting down the voice of reason in his head, he concentrated on the woman in his bed. Tracking the spill of her hair across the pillow and the movement of her fingers as she explored him, he grew acquainted with her body, learning every dip and curve, teasing her and showing her what she meant to him with every brush of his tongue and fingers. Purposefully she shifted against him, raising her hips just a little, just enough, and Barton caught fire. Desire coursed through him, an inferno that answered her call as she writhed under him.

He knew that he was lost to her when she arched her body against his, pelvic muscles clenching and releasing as he slid into position above her. Her eyes dilated as she watched him move closer. She let out a breathy sigh. It was exactly the kind of sound that he had never expected to hear escape from a woman like Natasha and he knew that the sight of her biting down on her kiss swollen lips was that he would not forget. Wrapping a leg around him, she pulled him to where she wanted him, eyes both lusty and defiant when she looked up at him.

Their bodies were like puzzle pieces, fitting together perfectly, easily, like they were made to be together; his chest against her breasts, shoulders wide over hers as he lifted her gently, angling her body just how he wanted it so that he could slip slowly and easily inside her. Engulfed by the heat of her, he felt her grip tighten on his forearms, both of them shuddering at the contact. He heard her sharp inhalation as he entered her, saw her eyes close, swallowed back a groan of his own as she gripped him, hot and wet and perfect. He paused giving them both a chance to adjust.

Natasha's eyes opened and she looked up at him, eyes glazed with desire, dark and filled with a need that bordered on starvation. "I've been waiting a long time for you to do that," she murmured, and then she rolled her hips in a way that drew a moan from them both. Breathing hard they stared at one another. No going back now.

She drew his hand down to her own, opening her mouth to him, tongues dancing with one another, so hot, so alive. With a hand at his lower back she urged him in tight against her, arching against him, taking him in and opening for him, tilting her pelvis and inviting him deeper. Bodies working with and against one another, they became a single entity driven by instinct and desire, each of them finding a rhythm that came as easily to them as breathing. Her hands were all over him, pulling him so close that even the air couldn't get between them, wrapping herself around him until he no longer knew where she ended and he began.

Gathering her in his arms, he rose to his knees, supporting her weight as he resettled with his back to the mattress, concerned about his weight on top of her with that surgery scar. She planted her hands on his pecs, bending low to kiss him, hair falling in a soft curtain around them, as she found her rhythm. Absorbing the weight of her over him, the sensations of her body moving around his as he moved with her, he wondered why he had ever fought against this joining between them, the extension of partnership into a melding of flesh and blood, body and soul.

Arching up against her, feeding his length to her, he squeezed his eyes shut to savour the sensations. Every breath, every thrust, drew them closer to the inevitable. The bed danced beneath them as she met each of his movements, her hips rolling on the base of her spine as her cries grow louder and more urgent. Head kicking back on the pillows, he watched the sway of her breasts as she rode him, head tilted back, skin glowing in the dying light that entered the room. Grabbing her hips, he guided her movement, feeling the crush of her muscles and the urgency of her movement . Falling over him, she shared her growing desperation in the scrape of her nails and the way that she bit his lip, hands grabbing his hair and guiding him to where she wanted him most.

Amid hungry kisses and hungrier sounds, he rolled them over, pinning her beneath him and driving her into the mattress with every thrust of his hips. The trade of dominance was fluid and rather than fighting against it she melted beneath him, clenching her thighs hard against his hips, wrapping her legs loosely around his. She cried out, biting down on his shoulder as she broke apart beneath him, body surging in time with his own as her internal muscles clamped down on him in waves. He knew that he was close, so close, her cries and the rhythm of her body pulling him in and making his blood boil. The feel of her teeth in his skin sent him over the edge. The orgasm tackled him from behind, muscles tight as steel, thrusts becoming erratic, and he rode the waves, prolonging the moment before he collapsed onto her shoulder.

He kissed her softly, tenderly, giving them both time to catch their breath. He wanted to ask her if she was okay but it just seemed too clichéd so he asked her without words, letting his kisses speak for him. She answered the same way, whimpering at the loss as he carefully moved off her and settled at her side. When she turned her face to his there was a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes that told him everything he needed to know. "Will all of our hunting trips end like this?" she asked breathlessly.

He chuckled, running his fingertips over the soft skin of her clavicle and delighting in the shiver that his touch caused. "Distinct possibility ..."

Her laughter filled the room as she tucked herself in against him, getting as close as she could without being on top of him. She nibbled at his chin, working her way up to his lips and pressed a searing kiss to his mouth. "Good," she murmured.

He'd been right, nothing would ever be the same again, but it seemed that they were both perfectly okay with that.


	32. Chapter 32

_Apologies for the time that's gone by since last update - as some of you know I've just gone back to work so my time will be limited for the next couple of weeks at least. Updates will happen but they'll be coming slower - thanks in advance for your patience! _

_Okay, it was time for a little bit of fluff and some emotion I felt ... hope you enjoy it. _

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He was gone when she woke up, the sheets already cool when she reached out in search of him. Opening her eyes fully, Natasha blinked against the sunlight that flooded through the window, warming her skin and casting the room in golden hues that made everything that had transpired between them feel like a dream.

She stretched, cataloguing the delicious aches that lingered in her muscles and bones. Two weeks had passed since that first time and they had found that being lovers came as easily to them as breathing, just a natural extension of their existing partnership. Though they had shared a dozen nights wrapped around one another, bodies lit up from the inside and crying one another's names into the darkness, she still struggled to believe that it was possible for her to trust someone entirely. Out of one of the worst experiences of her life had come one of the best. All that pain and rage had only served to make her open up her eyes and realise that what she wanted had been right in front of her the entire time.

Closing her eyes again she allowed herself to remember the feel of his hands, the reverent way in which he had looked at her, the feel of his teeth on her skin as he had driven her ever higher. Though she had tried to be brave about what their many kisses and caresses had been building up to, deep down she had been afraid that his touch would trigger all kinds of land mines. She never wanted anything to do with New Mexico to be in the space between them. For one brief moment she had been sure that she wouldn't get through it, her body tensing up despite the fact that her brain was entirely on board with what was unfolding, but the consideration that he showed her and the fire that his touch stoked in her made it easy to submit to him when the time came. As he had in all other ways, he had just known how to overcome her barriers and make her trust him. One night in Clint's arms had burned away the touch of every other man she had ever shared a bed with and every night since had chipped away at the hold that the past had always had on her.

Rolling over she found the note, written in his familiar and unusually neat script, that he had left for her on the pillow. In typical fashion he hadn't wanted to wake her when he had headed out hunting at sunrise so he had left her to sleep a while longer, promising that he would make her breakfast upon his return and informing her that he was looking forward to seeing her when he got back. It was the last three words of his brief note that made her smile, a declaration of feelings that he had yet to make verbally written with flourish at the bottom of the page.

She slipped from the bed and padded through to the bathroom without bothering to grab clothing from the dresser. Starting the shower, she turned to look at herself in the mirror, eyes absorbing the familiar features and the unmistakable glint of satisfaction in her eyes. She was like a new woman, even the scars that she bore ceasing to be imperfections and becoming reminders of all that she survived to have this chance at happiness with Clint.

He was home when she emerged from her shower. He appeared in the bedroom doorway as she was dressing, leaning casually against the frame while his eyes took in every inch of her from bare feet to wet hair and everything in between. For a woman who had spent much of her adult life feigning passion as part of missions, she found herself once again drunk on the tide of her body's response to him. All she could think about was what it had felt like to have his body on top of her, inside of her, the way that her body had wept and sang for him. The mere proximity of his body to hers seemed to call to her, her blood warming, slumbering, in her veins beneath his gaze, her body his for the taking.

Clint smiled, "miss me Natasha?"

The question was loaded with unspoken meaning and they both knew it. Unable to form words, she nodded, staring at him wide-eyed and wanting. His skin was flushed, a fine sheen of perspiration making his bronzed skin glow and a shiver of desire played along her spine. This wasn't just lust, no it went far beyond that and into a territory where the fire of her body paled in the face of the connection they had to one another.

"Y' know I like that shirt on you," he told her, moving closer. Natasha held her ground. She knew that he liked to see her in his shirts, that to him it was a sign that she was comfortable in his space, as well as a declaration that she was his. The look in his eyes, the caged heat that burned there, was enough to tell her that they were on exactly the same page and that they were probably headed for the bed behind her.

She smiled, enticing him, wrapping herself in the warmth of his arms as he came to her. "Just shut up and kiss me," she told him, lifting her face to his own. She wasn't thinking about how bossy she might have sounded as he wound himself around her, wasn't thinking about the fact that it would be the third day that week that they had wasted in bed. She wasn't thinking about all of the things that needed doing when his hands tangled in her hair, making sure that she knew he wanted her to stay put. She wasn't thinking about dinner or hunting or that run into town that they'd planned to make as he sighed into her mouth. And she wasn't thinking at all when he picked her up and carried her back to bed.

Afterwards she left him to shower, throwing on yoga sweats and a vest to wander out onto the porch with a beer from the fridge. She had declined to join him in the shower, knowing that they would probably lose another hour and knowing that the rumbling of her stomach was a distraction that she could only ignore for so long. He would join her when he was done. Without conscious thought she wandered to the far edge of the structure, crouching down beside the post upon which he had carved their initials months ago. Once again she traced her fingertips over the lettering and considered the way that their lives were entwined, for better or worse they were a part of one another and she had no inclination to change that. Idly she wondered whether there had been more to the carving than she had realised at the time, whether Clint's feelings, which seemed so recent a development to her, had been simmering for longer than she appreciated.

"It's not going to disappear you know," he told her, the sound of his voice startling her more than she would usually admit to. It was rare that he managed to sneak up on her, letting down her guard entirely with him had given him an advantage. "It'll still be there as long as this place is standing."

"When you carved this you told me that it was a family tradition, that the initials represent the person who means most to you?" she exclaimed.

Clint inclined his head, a nod that acknowledged what she had said for truth. "I did," he confirmed.

"Why my initials?" she asked. "You could have any woman you want so why me?"

For a long moment he just looked at her, weighing her expression and his own words carefully. She waited, hoping that he would understand that she wasn't asking because she felt that she didn't deserve him but that she was genuinely curious. Clint was a good man and he deserved someone softer than herself, someone nurturing who could live a quiet life with him without worrying about the horrors of her past. She would be at his side for as long as he would have her, she knew that was a certainty that defied all the logic for which she was famed, but she wasn't sure that he wouldn't eventually want something else.

"Why wouldn't I want you?" he asked genuinely puzzled. "You're the only person I can be myself with Nat, the only person who sees the real me. You're beautiful and strong and fierce and gentle all at the same time. You look at me and I see everything that I want to fight for and everything that I can't live without. Who else would understand this life I lead better than you, why would I want anyone but you?"

Thrown by the simplicity of the statement and the thought that he had obviously put into the answer, she didn't think before she spoke. "Don't you want something normal?" she asked desperately.

He pulled her into his arms, lips pressing a kiss to the skin at her temple as he held her. The warmth of his skin seeped into her, his skin still damp beneath his shirt from the shower. She could feel his heart against her ear as he pulled her into his chest, steady and sure. It was her favourite rhythm, the most reassuring sound that she knew. "Our lives are never going to be normal but that's okay." His voice rumbled through her, the words washing away any insecurity and giving her the ability to relax into him. " I knew it then and I know it now, Nat all I want is you, however that comes."


	33. Chapter 33

Pacing the open space of the living area, Natasha tightened her hold on her emotions and willed herself to remain calm. Three days earlier Clint had returned from a hunt nursing a wound to his side which he had told her had been caused by a fall. They had taken all the necessary precautions against infection, cleaning the wound and stitching it closed as best they could with their limited supplies. Since then though, it had become increasingly obvious to her that an infection had set in and now the wound was beyond her expertise to treat effectively. The temptation to call for help was growing stronger by the minute, particularly as she listened to the sound of his fevered mutterings on the other side of the door.

At first he had insisted that he was fine, moving around the cabin as if nothing was wrong, favouring his side only slightly, but then he had collapsed and his temperature had shot up. For the last day and a half the fever had really started to take hold and he had been too sick to get out of bed. Despite making a run into town on her own to collect medication and other supplies, she hadn't been able to bring his temperature down and she knew that if she wanted to help him she would have to look to the outside world. Hospitals were out of the question since they were technically AWOL from SHIELD and doctors would ask too many questions, so she would have to be a little more creative. There was only one person that she could turn to but it wasn't without risk.

Moving out onto the porch, she shivered at the rush of cold winter air and dialled the number that had been written down and slipped in amongst her medical supplies when they left the SHIELD base three and a half months ago. It was fortunate that Clint had always kept the satellite phone out there since there was no cell reception and a normal phone line would have been out of the question. On the one occasion that they had used the number that she had just dialled, they had driven to a nearby town and made the call from a pay phone then travelled to a hotel two towns over for the meeting. She didn't want to leave him or move him unless it was absolutely necessary so she would use the satellite phone and rely on the discretion of the person she called.

"Hello?" the sound of that familiar voice was an instant balm, calling back memories of understanding and competency. Natasha could almost picture the woman at the other end of the line, hear the wheels turning in that formidable brain.

"It's me," she said softly. There was a silence at the other end of the line but she knew that her voice had been recognised. "I think we might need your help Doc ..."

It didn't take long for her to describe the situation to Carter and it took even less time for the medic to agree that she would meet her the following day. As luck would have it she was on leave and had been at home in New York when Natasha called her. It would be easy for her to hop a flight and come out to them, not that she knew where they were exactly. Clint had made the decision to keep the doctor in the dark about the specifics of their location so that if she was asked she didn't have to lie. Neither of them wanted Carter to be compromised by her kindness toward them or the duty that she evidently felt toward them both as their medic. Instead, Natasha would meet Carter at a nearby airport and drive her out to the cabin so that she could treat Clint and then she would take her back and let her board a flight home.

The night passed quietly with the fire built up in the living room and Natasha remaining at Clint's side. It wasn't a quiet night for him, that much was obvious, the thrashing of his limbs and the trembling of his muscles told her that though he slept it was anything but peaceful. Cooling his brow with damp towels and murmuring reassurances to him, she told herself that he was the strongest man she had ever known and that he would never leave her by choice. During his more lucid moments, he reached out to her, forcing his body upright from the mattress and leaning his head into her shoulder. Natasha sat on the edge of the mattress, absorbing his body weight and running her hands through his sweat soaked hair. His skin was burning up, his breathing ragged in her ear.

She fed him spoonfuls of home-made broth and honeyed tea when he was awake and encouraged him to drink sips from the bottle of water she had kept at the bedside, eventually stretching out at his side so that she could snatch a couple of hours of rest for herself when the worst of his shivers subsided. She did not sleep though, she didn't dare take her eyes off him. At sunrise, when she was sure that he was sleeping soundly, she slipped her fingers from the grip of his own and resumed pacing the length of the cabin, chewing on her thumb and watching the clock. The passing of hours that led up to the doctor's arrival had been painfully slow and she was more concerned than ever about Clint's condition, her only comfort was in knowing that help was on the way.

"Tasha ..." his voice carried out into the open space, disrupting her thought process. She rushed into the bedroom, finding him awake but disoriented, his eyes filled with shadows that she could not banish for him. He looked lost, child like. The need to protect him while he was so vulnerable was nearly overwhelming.

"I'm right here," she told him, urging him back against the pillows, running her fingers through his hair and taking his temperature with the touch of her hand against his skin. Too high. He didn't fight her as she coaxed him into drinking some water but he refused her offer of food, his eyes already heavy. Sweat glistened on his top lip, catching in the scruff that had grown in since he had last shaved. She'd never seen him with a beard, wasn't sure what she thought of it.

"Time is it?" he managed to ask, swallowing painfully around the words. She imagined that his throat was dry, that the fever must be slowly wringing every drop of moisture from his body.

"Little after eight," she replied. "I'm heading out to get us some supplies shortly but I'll be back as soon as I can."

Clint nodded, trying to stay awake. Peeling back the dressing that she had strapped over his wound the previous day, Natasha was dismayed to find that the evidence of infection was spreading, the surrounding tissue hot to the touch and inflamed to an ugly red. It was a good thing that she had called for Carter because treatment of his condition was now definitely beyond her skill to treat. Under normal circumstances she would have considered stealing the antibiotics that he obviously needed from a nearby pharmacy or hospital but she really couldn't risk the exposure, plus she would be guessing as to which type he needed. His hand found hers and squeezed it as she redressed the wound with fresh gauze and taped it down gently, his breath a pained hiss. "Painful?" she asked, not really needing the confirmation.

He nodded, relaxing his grip on her hand. His eyes locking with hers. "It's bad isn't it?" he asked.

Natasha couldn't find the words that she needed to confirm his suspicions, but it wouldn't matter whether she lied to him or not. He knew that the pain and the fever were signs that the wound was infected and he knew what that could mean when they were so far away from their usual standard of medical care. "You've had worse," she told him, offering a slight smile of reassurance. "I called Carter, she's on her way," she admitted. He didn't show any surprise , just closed his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. On impulse Natasha leaned forward and squeezed his hand so that he opened his lids again and lifted his weary eyes to hers. "You're going to be fine," she told him firmly, "you'll be back on your feet before you know it."

He didn't believe her, not completely, she knew without the words being spoken, but his fingers tightened around hers. Even though he remained silent, though he didn't utter a single word, his eyes said more than his words ever could. She saw his love for her and his determination to fight mingled with the tiredness.

"Rest up," she told him, pressing her hand to the side of his cheek "I'll be back before you know it."

She made it to the airport with time to spare and parked the truck so that she could meet the doctor from the flight. It wasn't difficult to pick her out as she wove her way through the crowd to join her, a rucksack slung over one shoulder and a black leather doctors bag in her hand. It surprised Natasha how pleased she was to see the woman, how much relief she drew just from the simple sight of her. "Thanks for coming Doc," she said as they reached each other.

Carter nodded and reached out, laying a hand against Natasha's arm, the closest thing to a hug that the two women had shared. "It's Emma," she said, "if we're breaking the rules we should probably know each other by name don't you think." A moment of shared understanding flowed between them, an acknowledgement of all that had come before and passed between them in the months that they had known one another.

"Okay, tell me what we're dealing with on the drive," she instructed, turning her attention to the matter at hand. Natasha was pleased by the resolve that she saw in the medic's eyes as she explained what she knew about his condition. "Sounds like you did everything right," Carter remarked, "but I'll know more once I get a look at him."

The drive out to the cabin seemed longer on the way back, the two women exchanging conversation as Natasha navigated the winding roads that led to the cabin. She wasn't a talker, not really, but Emma kept the conversation flowing easily, chattering about what she had been doing during her leave and giving her snippets of information about some of their colleagues. It was a surprise when she pulled an opaque sleep mask from her bag and fastened it over her eyes so that she couldn't track their route, but they both knew that it was safest if she didn't know where they were headed. once they were closer to the cabin it wouldn't matter, all the rural roads looked the same.

"You can take it off," Natasha told him as they turned onto the forest access roads that would take them to Clint's property. "We're almost there."

Speeding through the trees, her thoughts turned to the man who was waiting for them within the cabin walls. It had been necessary to leave him behind but now that she was close to being back under the same roof as him, within minutes of being able to set eyes on him and know that he was okay, she felt that she could breathe again. The weight in her chest lessened with every metre of ground that she covered.

Carter was out of the car almost before it had stopped moving, bag in hand as she moved across the open ground toward the porch steps. Opening the way into the cabin, Natasha headed straight for the bedroom door dropping the rucksack that she had carried inside. He was asleep where she had left him, propped up against the pillows, a slight frown possessing his features. His eyes flickered open as she crossed the room to his side, hand tightening around the hand gun that he had apparently removed from the bedside cabinet. She didn't like the cough that rattled up from his chest as he set the gun down.

"Just me," she told him gently, "Doc's here to take a look at you."

Carter's appraisal of Clint's wound was swift and methodical as she pushed her way to the bed. Natasha stepped back to give her room but she didn't miss the expression that flickered through the woman's eyes when she removed the dressing. The infection was worse than it had been when she had changed it in the early hours, inflammation spreading quickly and leaving the surrounding tissues burning. Clint winced as Carter palpated his abdomen, biting deep into his lip in an attempt to swallow a cry of pain and Natasha reacted the only way she knew how when he was hurting, her hand finding his and absorbing his grip as he tried to catch his breath.

"Well you did the right thing calling me Natasha," Carter exclaimed, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his arm. She listened intently for a second. "Okay," she breathed after a moment, keeping her eyes and her focus on her patient. Natasha knew that now she had seen Clint, he would be the sole focus of her attention until she had administered whatever treatment was necessary but she also knew that though she addressed the words to him, Emma was speaking to them both. "There's infection in the tissue surrounding the wound and we need to get that under control, it's worse than I had hoped but it's treatable. For starters I'm going to have to reopen the stitches and flush the wound out."

"Sounds bad," he groaned. "Guess I should be more careful when I fall on my arrows."

The attempt at humour would have been a lot more convincing if he could get the words out without writhing around the pain he was feeling. Turning her gaze to the medic at the other side of his body, Natasha braced herself for what was to come. No matter how bad it got she wasn't about to leave him now, medical procedure or not, she would stay at his side. "What do you need me to do?" she asked.

"Could you get my black bag and some clean towels and then I'm going to need you here to assist." Natasha moved to follow the instructions and heard Carter's voice speaking directly to Clint, her tone sure and steady as she helped him to lie flat on the mattress. When she returned to the bedroom she found the doctor looking down at him, her expression one of determined calm and absolute self-assurance. "Don't worry, I'm going to fix you," she told him.

Clint nodded and complied as Natasha helped Carter to lay a pad of towels under him. The padding made sense to her, it would be easier to change towels than to try to change the bedding when the procedure was over. If the fact that she was about to operate in something far removed from infirmary conditions bothered the doctor, she didn't voice those concerns, instead she calmly explained to Natasha what they were about to do and how staying through it would both help to keep him calm and possibly help her with her phobia about doctors.

"You ready?" she asked, giving Clint an injection to help with the pain. He looked to Natasha, eyes silently reassuring her that he was going to be okay and then nodded. Carter paused with her suture scissors poised over the stitches that he had put into himself a couple of days earlier and met his gaze once again. "I won't lie, this could be uncomfortable," she told him.

Clint gritted his teeth and nodded slightly, acknowledging the words. "Do what you have to do Doc," he told her. He turned his head, searching, "Nat?"

She positioned herself on the mattress beside his right shoulder, laying a hand on his forehead and running her fingers through his damp hair. "Right here."

Carter laid her hand on his stomach, positioning the gauze that she had prepared and Clint jerked, discomfort evident. The doctor didn't flinch, her hand steady as a rock as she locked eyes firstly with Natasha and then with Clint himself. "I'll be as quick and as gentle as I can," she told him. "Buckle up Agent Barton this is going to sting a little."


	34. Chapter 34

"Don't get up," Carter announced as she emerged from the bedroom, " he's still sleeping."

Since they had finished up in the bedroom some time earlier, the two women had retired to the living room and given Clint some space to rest without disturbance. The time that had passed had also given Natasha time to come to terms with just how ill her lover had been. "Is he any better?" she asked, looking up from the book that was cradled in her palms. She had read the same page three times and still had no idea what it was about. Setting the book down on the side table at her elbow, she looked up to their medic, their friend, in search of answers.

"He's stable," Emma replied, "all we can do is keep an eye on him for the time being. The sedation will keep him calm so that he doesn't tear the wound tract by moving around too much."

Natasha tried not to think back to the way that he had looked as the doctor worked on him, how he had barely even moved though his entire body trembled with pain. The grip of his hand on hers had been strong enough that she'd had to swallow down her own pain but she had done so without hesitation, restricting his movement and reminding him that she was there. She tried not to remember the strain in his voice as he informed her that he hadn't had nearly enough pain relief for what Carter was doing to him.

Nodding, she uncurled her limbs, rose from the chair and climbed to her feet. Emma had announced shortly after arriving that she would not be boarding her scheduled flight back to New York that evening and Natasha was glad of the company, particularly since the woman's unflappable calm was the perfect counterpoint to the waves of anxiety that kept rising in her. It had been a long afternoon and she was sure that it would be an even longer night.

She fixed dinner for them, the familiar actions soothing her and slowing the racing of her thoughts. It was fortunate that she had paid attention when Clint cooked, since their arrival at the cabin she had learned several new recipes, including the stew that she had chosen to make for them that night.

"You know I never thought that I'd see you so at home in a kitchen," Emma remarked from the doorway, "especially since you once told me that you couldn't cook to save your life."

"Not true," Natasha countered automatically, a smile on her face. "I told you that I could cook spaghetti."

"Spaghetti huh?" Carter looked pointedly at the pot that simmered on the stove and the various chopping boards and vegetable peelings that were spread across the counter.

Natasha chuckled, "I've had time on my hands, it's fair to say that I've expanded my repertoire."

They ate together at the pine table in the kitchen and they talked as equals. Natasha learned that Emma had been a trauma surgeon at a major New York hospital before she joined SHIELD and that she had two brothers who were extremely overprotective. They talked about what Clint and Natasha had been doing since their departure from base, about how they had come to be partners in the first place, and in an enormous leap of faith she opened up about what had happened in New Mexico. Neither of them mentioned the obvious elephant in the room and brought up the relationship between herself and Clint.

While the doctor cleared up after dinner, at her own insistence, Natasha visited her partner briefly. There was a chair pulled up close to the side of the bed where Carter had sat while she had painstakingly cleaned the wound in his side and she sank into it gratefully. The infection had been so much worse than Natasha had imagined and it had taken them over an hour to reopen and clean it thoroughly. If not for her decision to call in the doctor it was likely that sepsis would have set in. The phone call that she had made had probably saved his life.

"He's still sleeping?" Emma appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a dish towel. No matter what she had thought about all the doctors she had crossed paths with in the past, she couldn't imagine feeling anything but reassured under the weight of that brown eyed gaze. Emma was focussed on saving Clint and she would do everything in her power to do it.

Nodding, Natasha turned her attention back to the figure on the bed, "I'm not used to seeing him like this." A hand landed on her shoulder, offering reassurance without words and she accepted that touch and its sentiment without resistance. "He was the strong one when I was suffering, I never appreciated how difficult must have been for him."

"We do what we do without regret for those we love," Emma acknowledged. She moved around Natasha's chair to the bedside and paused at Clint's side her eyes roaming over the chest of the man in front of them, the gaze all about medical assessment. There was an ownership in the other woman's gaze, a possessive gleam that Natasha had seen when she had been under her care in the infirmary. With steady, professional hands, she peeled the dressing away from his abdomen, carefully removing the adhesive tape that held it in place.

The wound was still open, packed with gauze that could be easily changed without disturbing him too much, the surrounding area still red and angry looking. Removing the infected tissue hadn't been easy but the antibiotics were helping to support his immune system and the sedation was keeping him calm. A bag of fluids hung from a picture hook above the bed and delivered medicine directly into his vein via a needle at his elbow. He was calm though and his colour was good.

"Wound looks better," the doctor announced, replacing the dressing with efficient motions. "We might be able to stitch him back up tomorrow if we make that trip to the pharmacy so that I can collect supplies."

Though she didn't like the idea of leaving him for even a second without someone close by, Emma had explained that there were certain specific supplies that she would need to help him recover, but that they were only available to medical personnel. In order to get hold of what she needed, she would have to accompany Natasha into town and show her credentials to the pharmacist.

It wasn't until Emma left the room and retreated to the living room, pulling the door half-shut behind her, that Natasha really allowed herself to look at him. Though he was still sleeping, his skin flushed and damp with perspiration, his expression didn't communicate discomfort. Body stretched out atop the mattress and covered by only a pair of boxers and a thin sheet, he was still apart from the rise and fall of his chest with each breath. She reached out a hand and laid her palm over his heart, finding the steady beating reassuring in the silence of the room. She had always loved the rhythm of his heartbeat, whether it was against her ear or beneath her fingertips it was her favourite lullaby, more soothing than any symphony ever recorded.

His eyes didn't open but he turned his face toward her own as if he registered her presence on some level. Her boy was still in there, still aware of what was happening around him. Though his strength was now directed toward the battle that was raging within him, he was still within reach.

"Yeah it's me," she told him quietly, "I'm still here." She had no idea how long she lingered at his side, her hand resting over his heart, eyes on his face, but when she left his side dusk was already falling.


	35. Chapter 35

_Apologies for the delay - life has been a bit manic and I just haven't had the time to sit down and look at this. Hope this tides you over..._

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During the three days in which Clint fought the infection in his side, Natasha and Emma developed a bond that the Russian spy could honestly say she had never shared with another woman. Trust had been established before the phone call that had brought her out to Iowa but during those days in which they only had one another for company it deepened and became a solid friendship; communication became easier, confidences were shared, first names became the norm.

The late autumn weather had brought cold spells and they had made good use of the wood stores that she and Clint had gathered and chopped ready for the winter months to keep the cabin warm throughout the day and night. Truthfully, the weather didn't bother Natasha nearly as much as she suspected it would bother Emma, she had after all grown up in Russia where the winters were far colder than anything Iowa had to offer. Spare blankets and pillows had allowed both women to make comfortable little nests on the chairs where they slept so that they disturbed him as little as possible. Though Natasha missed the warmth of him at her side, she found some comfort in the hours she spent with him during the day.

Clint still slept many hours a day but was no longer sedated, meaning that with help he could sit up in bed and attempt to eat the small meals that the women prepared for him. He hadn't argued with either of them when they told him to stay put and give his body a chance to recover from all that it had been through. Apart from the residual swelling and some bruising the only visual marker was a neat line of stitches in black thread below his rib cage. That line of stitches was all the evidence that either of them needed to know that Dr Emma Carter was not only one hell of a doctor but that she was a medic in whose hands they could both place their lives. Natasha would have been confident going under the knife any day of the week as long as Emma's hand was on the scalpel.

"You're sure you want me to do this?" Natasha asked, sitting astride his legs and looking him directly in the eye. "We don't want to set back your healing in any way."

"It'll be fine," he reassured her, grey eyes flashing with something that might have been amusement. "You'll be doing all the work, what could go wrong?"

Slapping him playfully on the arm as he raised an eyebrow in her direction, Natasha heard herself chuckling. His body was warm beneath her denim clad thighs but no longer burning with a fever, his expression was calm and sure as he regarded her, one hand resting on her hip. Simple contact was something that they hadn't realised they could miss so much until one of them was too ill for them to instigate all those little instances of skin to skin contact. He was waiting for her to make a decision on his request.

"Okay fine," she sighed resignedly, "but if you end up bleeding it's your fault and you can explain all of this to Carter when she gets back from her hike."

Leaning to the side, she dipped a wash cloth into the bowl of hot water on the bedside table and wrung it out, the water chiming softly in the quiet of the bedroom. She repeated the procedure before she brought the warm fabric to his skin and gently cleaned the skin of his jaw. Next came the shaving soap, applied with an old-fashioned brush until the beard that had grown in during his illness was lathered up and ready for the part of the procedure that Natasha was a little bit afraid of. It wasn't that she didn't think she had a steady hand, she knew that she did, but the fact that she had only ever used a straight razor as a weapon did not instil her with confidence.

She flicked the blade open and tested its edge against her thumb, knowing that if the blade was dull she was likely to cut him. Clint recognised her behaviour as a way of stalling and tilted his head slightly, making sure that she was looking at him before he spoke. "I trust you Nat," he told her, "and I appreciate you doing this for me."

He made it as easy for her as he could, tilting his head and helping to support her weight when she had to lean in closer so that she could see what she was doing. Tentatively, she drew the sharpened steel over the soft skin of his throat, taking more care with him than she would herself. With every movement of the blade against his skin, with every rinse and every patch of freshly shaven skin that emerged, she found her confidence. It was a new experience to have him entirely at her mercy, to see in every glance and gesture that he had put his heart and his life in her hands. Just a tiny movement of her wrist could have slit his throat and yet the entire experience was somehow unbelievably intimate. Once again she was reminded that it was possible to miss him even though they had been under the same roof the whole time.

When he was clean-shaven and she had washed away any remaining shaving soap from his skin, she leaned in close. "I can't wait to get out of this bed and back on my feet," he exclaimed, running his hands up and down her back, the implication of his words clear to her in the way that he touched her. "Although having the Black Widow as a nurse maid has been an interesting experience."

Natasha leaned her forehead against his, her smile nothing more than a wicked curve of her lips. "It's not my strongest skill set," she admitted, "but for you I make an exception."

After dinner that night, during which Clint joined them at the table for the first time since he had fallen sick, Natasha found herself feeling restless. There was no obvious reason for the unease that she felt, Clint was doing well, the worst of his illness was over and the doctor was confident enough in his recovery to start talking about returning to New York, but she still couldn't settle. The reflection in the mirror was reminiscent of the woman who had looked back at her during her own ordeal, dark circles and tired features. Tiredness was her constant companion, the exhaustion of worrying over his condition grinding her down until sleep eluded her even when he was resting.

It was close to midnight when she found herself out on the porch, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the night air. The cold helped her to think clearly, each inhalation easing the spiralling sense of panic that threatened to take over her. Leaning against the rail she turned her face up toward the night sky, searching for the reasons for her sudden foreboding in the stars. She had developed a strange affection for the night sky since the nights had started to cut in, learning the names and arrangements of the constellations during her late night talks with Clint. They were a constant upon which she could always rely, much like the man who now slept inside the cabin at her back.

Tonight the stars offered her no answers, they made poor companions as she sipped her hot chocolate and shivered in the breeze. The cabin had come to feel like home, her life with Clint had become decidedly normal, but it couldn't last. His injury, the infection that came after it, both of those things were proof that he had been right when he had told her that their life would never be normal. Natasha had never deserved normality, not after all that she had done. The thought that something might happen to rob them of the life they seemed to be building, terrified her.

She let out a puff of breath that she had held for too long and sank to her knees, half forgotten prayers falling from her lips as she clutched the dog tags that she had worn since they left medical all those months ago. The tags were a reminder of the life that Clint had once led as well as his promise to her that he was always with her. She must have traced her fingertips over the metal a thousand times since he had placed them, still warm from his own skin, around her neck.

The sound of the door opening and closing behind her grabbed her attention and she turned as Emma approached. Under the gaze of those dark eyes, Natasha felt as if she was about to crack wide open, her chest tightening and breath solidifying in her lungs.

"You okay?" she asked. "You've been out here for a while now." The doctor huddled into the coat that she had thrown on over her clothing, stepping further out onto the porch and closer to Natasha.

The redhead knew that there was no point in trying to hide the truth from the doctor, the woman in front of her was far too astute to swallow the lie. "Just can't seem to breathe properly," she admitted.

Carter's physician instincts came online in a heartbeat, feet carrying her across the wooden boards until she reached Natasha's side. It was obvious that she was looking for a medical explanation for shortness of breath, signs of a panic attack or some other physical stimulus that would give her something to work with. They both knew that she wasn't going to find anything.

They wound up with Natasha perched on the porch rail and Emma in the chair at the end of the porch, both huddled into the clothing as they tried to keep warm. Inside her blanket Natasha clutched the tags in one hand, tracing the letters that spelled out his name with her fingertip.

"You know, this thing with you and Barton ..." Emma said finally, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between them.

Lifting her eyes, she traced the features of the other woman, a woman who had rapidly gone from an enforced presence at her side to a trusted friend and found nothing that could be considered approaching judgement in the eyes of the woman opposite her. "I don't ..."

"I approve," Carter interrupted. "The two of you are good for one another, always have been. I don't care what protocol says, what SHIELD say, the connection that the two of you have is the thing that's going to keep you both alive. I saw it that first day in your quarters and I see the two of you now and know that it's getting stronger by the day."

"We were never supposed to be this close," she explained, voicing her deepest fears. "We were meant to be partners, I don't doubt that, but the rest of what we are, what we've become … it freezes me."

"In what way?"

"I don't fear much," Natasha explained, choosing her words carefully, "death and pain are old friends. I've been a spy since I was a child and an assassin since I was a teenager, I've learned not to feel anything. Feelings can be used against you, it's safer not to acknowledge anything. If I didn't allow myself to feel then my emotions couldn't become a weakness. Clint is the first person I let in, the only person that I opened myself up to. At first my trust in him was liberating but now I realise that the only thing that has the power to hurt me is the thought of losing him. When I give my subconscious free rein, when I wake up from the nightmares, the only thing that scares me is living without him."

Emma sighed, reaching out a hand to lay her palm on Natasha's knee. "That's what love does to a person," she murmured. Before Natasha could summon any words to play down the way that she felt for her partner, Emma continued. "You can deny it if you want but we both know that you're in love with him Natasha. I see the way that you hold those dog tags and the way that you look at him when you're in the same room. If it helps at all, the feeling is entirely mutual. I see the way that Barton looks at you, like you are the sun and he's spent his whole life in the dark. He loves you Natasha."

"I know that," she replied a little defensively, hopping down from the rail and pacing around on the porch. There was no way that she could deny what Emma was saying, she could no more do that than she could deny they way that she felt about Clint. The anxiety that she felt was a churning sickness that pulled at her until she no longer knew which way was up and which was down, until the world was slightly off balance. "I know that," quieter this time, an acknowledgement and an apology for her earlier tone all wrapped up in three words. "He is everything that I think of as home and I know that he's getting better, so why can't I sleep?"

"You've been living in a one bedroom cabin in the woods for the last few months and when I arrived there wasn't any evidence that either of you had been sleeping in the living area which makes me think that you've slept side by side since you came out here," Emma paused, exhaled, then continued. "Did you ever consider that the reason you can't sleep is that you're not sleeping beside him?"

A short while later, when they returned to the cabin and Emma had settled into her nest of blankets on the sofa, she found herself in the doorway of the bedroom. It was easy to see that his sleep was troubled, the expression on his face betraying his unease. Courtesy should have prompted her to wake him, releasing him from the grip of whatever nightmare he was locked into, but instead she simply closed the door and approached the bed, shedding her clothing and slipping into her nightgown. At the touch of her palm on his shoulder, he quieted, the frown easing from his features. She settled in beside him, studying the profile of her best friend in the darkness, the way that his hair fell over his forehead, the line of his jaw. His arm came around her, pulling her closer. His touch was gentle, reverent as it ghosted across her hip and settled as an open palm at the small of her back. With her nose almost touching his, Natasha closed her eyes and slept better than she had in more than a week.


	36. Chapter 36

"You should really take it easy with the training you know, it's going to take a while before your body is ready for the kind of punishment you inflict on it in your workout sessions."

Turning his head, Clint grinned at the doctor where she stood on the porch. For the last ten minutes or so she had been watching as he and Natasha sparred in the meadow, making the most of the dry weather to get outside. Although she offered words of caution, Carter had nothing to worry about, she and Natasha were in perfect agreement as to how his rehabilitation should be handled. Gentle exercise was the order of the day even though he could feel his strength returning with each day that passed. "Feels good to be active again Doc," he told her, ducking to avoid an incoming blow from his partner, "but my body is being pretty up front with me about its limitations."

Carter watched the pair of them like she was measuring their vital signs without the benefit of the necessary equipment, her gaze assessing the healing that had taken place and that which was still to be completed as they moved. She studied him with a scrutiny that he took no offence at because he knew that she was just doing her job. Without the medical instincts of that woman, there was a strong possibility that he could have died. She was the reason that he was alive, as well as being the reason that Natasha had survived the events in New Mexico. As far as he was concerned she had earned the right to look at him as a medical project. She had earned her place as their medic when she had brought Natasha back from the dead in front of his very eyes and she had earned her place as one of them when she had come out to the cabin and saved him.

"As long as you're listening to what it's telling you," she remarked, leaning over the rail and sipping coffee from the mug in her hand. "I know how hard you guys push yourselves when you're trying to get back on your feet. I remember a certain other agent who drove me crazy with her insistence on being up and out of bed before she was fully healed."

At the pointed look in her direction, Natasha laughed. Her entire posture shifted, moving from a loose fighting stance to complete relaxation as she came to stand at his side. As she tilted her face up toward the woman above her on the porch, Clint had never found her lovelier. "Lucky for me I had a great doctor to get me back on my feet."

That afternoon they packed up all of Emma's belongings and loaded them into the truck. After more than a week at the cabin with them she was returning to New York and would see out the rest of her leave with friends and family before returning to active duty with SHIELD. Natasha drove, navigating the roads from the cabin, through town and out toward the airport while they talked. Clint watched the familiar scenery pass by the windows and thought about the risk that the doctor had taken in coming to them when they were on suspension.

The goodbyes were easy, Carter parting company with them as an old friend rather than a colleague. As he watched the doctor and Natasha share a hug, he realised that the two were growing increasingly close and that his partner had at long last forged a meaningful relationship with another female. He was glad, he wanted her to have friends other than himself and though she had never voiced the thought, he knew that she had always felt like an outsider. Following his partner's lead he too gave the doctor a brief hug at the departure gate. "Don't think I thanked you for coming out here and fixing me Doc," he exclaimed quietly.

"No thanks needed," she replied. "I'm your assigned medic remember, even if you guys aren't at SHIELD right now I'm taking my duty seriously."

He couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up from inside him and judging by the amusement in her eyes when he pulled back from him, she was more than happy to take risks on their behalf. In another life he was almost sure that Dr Emma Carter would have made a formidable agent in her own right. "You're okay Doc, you know that?" he chuckled.

Emma stepped back, turning her face so that she could see them both clearly. "Take care of yourselves you two," she told them. "I won't be around to patch you up for a while if you keep living dangerously but … " she stepped back, toward the departure gate, smile still on her face, " … I have a feeling that I'll be seeing you both very soon."

"What do you think she meant by she'll be seeing us soon?" Natasha asked as she drove them home. She'd been mostly silent since they left the airport, focussed on getting them back to the cabin before the predicted rain began to fall. Weather reports on the radio were warning of a cold front with heavy rain that was expected to last through the next few days so it would be best if they were back at the cabin before the rain began.

"Maybe she knows something that we don't about the investigation," he suggested, lacing his fingers with hers when she removed her right hand from the wheel. "They could be about to call us back."

He could tell from the expression on her face that she had mixed feelings about the thought of returning to base and the life and death assignments that had always been their forte. He couldn't blame her for feeling that way, not when he was torn between wanting to return to the life they had known and wanting to explore the new one that they had built. "Well they certainly took their time about it," she remarked, glancing at him and offering him a small smile before turning her attention back to the familiar curves of the road. She didn't speak again until they pulled to a stop at the side of the cabin. "I think that we need to make the most of whatever time we have left here," she announced, "because when we go back there things are going to be very different."

The rain had started as they approached the meadow and by the time they made it from the truck to the porch Natasha's hair was hanging in wet waves around her face. Her laughter hung on the air as she turned into the circle of his arms and watched the rain fall over the clearing. The weather report hadn't lied, and the rain drumming on the roof provided a soothing accompaniment to the beating of his pulse as he held her to him. Lightning flashed, tearing across the sky in a spectacular display, the air charged with electricity.

"Quite a show huh?" he remarked, dropping a kiss on the back of her neck. Without warning Natasha twisted in his arms and crashed her lips to his own, catching him off guard and unprepared. Her kiss was as violent as it was sweet and a welcome substitute to conversation. There was no easing into their embrace, not when Natasha was right up against him, the scent of her burrowing into his brain. Her presence and the knowledge that they were entirely alone put him on edge and put him on fire.

"I've seen far more breathtaking sights than this," she chuckled. As her hands traced the features of his face and wound into his hair, she fixed him with a look that made him feel ten feet tall. There was desire in her eyes, dark and sinful, and it called to him.

"Keep on looking at me like that and I might just wind up seeing Carter again sooner than we anticipated," he told her, doing nothing at all to push her away.

Natasha moved in close and smiled against his lips, her fingers slipping under the hem of his sweater and hooking into the belt loops of his jeans to pull his lower body in close against hers. Leaning into him, she kissed him again and he responded, tenderly at first, but then the passion that had always been there between them reared up and their kiss deepened, desperation driving them toward one another. "We should probably stop," she whispered, kissing along his jaw and up to the corner of his mouth.

Her eyes were glazed, slightly unfocussed as she looked up at him and knowing that he was able to pull that kind of response from her was enough to override any doubts that he had about where the night was headed. He was the only thing in her world in that moment and it thrilled him. "I can't," he replied breathlessly, a slight edge of laughter in his voice as he claimed her lips once again, "you know I can't."

"Good," she murmured, tugging him toward the door, "because I don't ever want you to."


	37. Chapter 37

_**A.N: **__Short and sweet - hope you enjoy. Thank you all for the continued feedback and support - I don't say that as often as you deserve. As always I'd love to know what you think. _

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Concentrating on the feel of his body against her own, smooth and hard and soft and warm, Natasha fought the knowledge that their lives were about to change again. Normally it was easy for her to pretend that the real world could not reach them, easy to lose herself in the proximity of his form but there wasn't any escape that morning.

"Don't think about it," he whispered, the touch of his words against the back of her neck sent sweet shivers through her. Twisting her face around toward his own, he brought his lips to hers. The reaction was instantaneous, a slow slumbering of her blood that warmed her body for him. His kiss was soft, almost tentative but the familiar heat soon rose between them as his fingers traced the bones of her spine, feather light touches that stole her breath and sped her pulse.

Lost, she turned to face him, pulling him until their mouths fused and she could wrap her body around his like Christmas lights. He tasted her desperation and answered it with his own, mouth plundering hers, though his hands moved with characteristic gentleness, calloused fingertips moving across her skin and leaving trails of fire in their wake. Slowly he chased the sensations in her body, coaxing her into forgetting about the world and focussing only on him as he brought her to orgasm, looking down at her with a lovers eyes, eyes that were filled with the dark knowledge of a hundred couplings. His touch brought her exquisite pleasure but his eyes, those endless stormy eyes made her burn.

Behind closed eyelids Natasha saw stars, her body burning from the inside out as Clint slid up her body, hips coming to rest between her thighs, fingers reaching out and entwining with her own. With each brush of his lips against her skin small aftershocks rippled through her body. There was something undeniably reassuring in the way that they fit together, in the fact that they could be eye to eye while he moved inside her. The days of indecision about their relationship were long gone, they both knew that there was no going back, that no matter what happened the feelings weren't going anywhere. They would be in love until it killed them both.

Eyes darkened with want, he looked down at her, face beautifully intense as he pushed away the realities that waited for them with each stroke of his body. Natasha surrendered to him, meeting his every movement with her own, clutching his neck and wrapping her legs around his waist, taking him as hard and deep as her limber body could manage. It wasn't long before she felt that familiar rush tearing through her, blood boiling in her veins as he moved in and above her. Rocking her hips in time with his, she planted fevered kisses at his throat and jaw, joining their mouths once again so that she could breathe her approval into his mouth. Her release came out of nowhere, back arching, eyes widening as they locked with his while he rode out his own orgasm above her, the squeeze of her core muscles bringing a look of soft astonishment to his face as he came.

His voice was soft, ragged, beautifully intense, like the first rumble of thunder from an approaching storm. "Merry Christmas Nat," he murmured between kisses.

"Merry Christmas Clint," she replied, a smile creeping across her face despite her dislike for the holidays and all that they represented. He had given her the one thing that she wanted when he had given her himself, there was nothing else that she could ask him for that would mean more to her, nothing that could compare. He had done the impossible; he had made the warrior in her feel like a woman.

They didn't bother with a big fancy dinner, dining instead on cold cuts from the previous day and bread that Clint had made himself. Before the fire, they drank wine and traded kisses as well as gifts that they had made or fashioned for one another. Clint had whittled a wooden pendant for her, a tiny yet exquisite rendering of a hawk which he had threaded onto a thin strip of leather and fastened around her throat. To her relief, he seemed thrilled with the dream catcher she had woven for him, hanging it by the window in the bedroom and thanking her with a kiss that made her insides melt.

They played chess and stayed up long into the night, waiting until the fire was dying to fall into bed, full of good humour and amorous intent. They gave themselves to the night and the pleasures that could be found in its embrace and they didn't let the real world in to touch them. Neither of them mentioned the fact that the call had come two days earlier, nor did they talk about the fact that the dream that was their time at the cabin was coming to an end. In less than a week they would be back at SHIELD and, though they were both ready to get back to work, their time together as a normal couple would be over.


	38. Chapter 38

**A.N:**_ Okay guys, so I've made the decision that this is going to be the final chapter of Bruises. At this time I have several ideas burning up my brain that don't fit with this story at all and I think I've taken it as far as I can at this time. I do have a couple of companion pieces in mind however!_

_Thank you to each and every one of you who have given your time to read and review this - particularly those who have been with me since this started all those months ago. I hope to see you all again somewhere along the way! _

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When they had left the cabin behind, locking the doors and shuttering the windows against the elements, it had felt like the end of an era. He had known as they climbed into the truck that they would return but the place had always had a significance to him and now it held an even bigger place in his heart. The small wooden house in which he had passed childhood weekends had been the place where he and Natasha truly found one another and in his mind it would always belong to them both. He knew from the expression on her face that she felt the same way as she looked the place over one last time.

"We'll come back right?" she asked, standing ankle-deep in the snow, wrapped up against the Iowa winter in layers of black. Her eyes were fixed on the building, tracing the lines of the cabin and cataloguing the memories that she associated with the place. He could read the longing in her gaze, knew that she had come to love the place as much as he did.

Clint moved around the front of the truck until he could pull her against him, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. "We'll come back," he told her, "whenever we can."

The drive out to the private airfield was quiet, Natasha leaning into his shoulder as they threaded between the trees and into more urban areas. Though she was sad to be leaving the cabin and the quiet solitude it offered them, he could sense her instincts sharpening as they got closer to the pick up point. Four months in the country had softened her but the return to SHIELD and their chosen profession demanded that the colder, more calculating side of her nature rise closer to the surface. By the time they reached the airstrip, nobody would have known that the Black Widow was anything but the embodiment of her namesake.

They knew that the investigation had concluded, that the board had officially dropped any charges that they might have been inclined to bring against the pair of them. Carter had been more than helpful, providing all of the information that Hill had given her when they had contacted her after they were summoned back to duty. It transpired that there hadn't been enough evidence to prove that they had acted in retaliation for Natasha's kidnapping, something that they owed thanks to Director Fury, Hill and Carter herself for, so they had been forced to abandon their investigation and authorise their return to duty. Everyone knew, though nobody said it aloud, that they needed himself and Natasha back at work, assignments were piling up and some of them were beyond the skill of any but the best.

They were all there to greet them when they stepped out of the helicopter, the directors waiting for something that had long been on their wish list. Both Fury and Hill had wanted them in the field as soon as Natasha had recuperated from the wounds she sustained in New Mexico but fate had other plans in store for them all. Now that they were back, it felt strangely like they were a family reunited after a period of estrangement.

"Think they've been wearing those expressions the whole time we were gone?" he asked, leaning in close to his partner as he collected his bag from the landing pad.

Her smile was nothing more than a slight twitch of her lips, only visible at the corners if you knew where to look for it, but it was there. "They always look that way when we're about to get a talking to," she replied.

"Welcome back Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff," Fury nodded to each of them in turn. Nothing about the man in front of them had changed while they had been gone, he still radiated the authority of a man who had found himself in charge of some of the worlds most highly skilled and dangerous people. Clint respected the man immensely but that was about more than his command of his agents and lay in the way that the showed them enough respect to let them follow their instincts. Within reason, he was prepared to give them free rein.

"Good to be back Sir," Clint replied, returning the nod. It wasn't exactly a lie but it wasn't the whole truth either. If either of their superiors caught the lie, they didn't call them on it.

As they all turned and headed inside together, he allowed his fingertips to brush against the back of Natasha's elbow, offering her whatever comfort he could without making it obvious. "You're first stop is medical," the director explained, "you've been away for months so we need to run a medical to make sure that you're both fit for active duty and then we can discuss your return to the field."

"We have several assignments that require your attention," Hill continued, "including one that was botched by another agent and needs to be handled as swiftly and quietly as possible."

"Just like old times," Natasha muttered under her breath, casting a quick glance in his direction. He didn't miss the gleam of excitement in her eye, it seemed that he wasn't the only one who was enjoying the thought of utilising his skills again.

"Exactly like old times," Hill confirmed, "as soon as you're cleared you'll be briefed on your first job so I wouldn't get too comfortable, you won't be here long before you ship out."

"We've also made the decision not to assign the two of you with a handler," Fury explained as they passed through several security doorways controlled by security access panels, "you've proved that you can handle yourselves when you're in the field together and you certainly don't need someone to tell you how to get the job done. We will however, make sure that you have a direct line of contact to either Hill or myself so that you can check in and keep us apprised of your movements."

"The board are okay with that?" Clint asked, unable to stop the words from leaving his mouth. Given that the shadowy figures who controlled the organisation had been trying to put an end to their careers just weeks ago, the decision surprised him.

"The board don't run the day-to-day operations of this organisation," Fury said grimly. "It's my call and I'll stand by it, but the two of you need to play by the book for a while, no going off script."

They both nodded, understanding that was what was expected of them. "Your quarters are just as you left them," Hill reassured them as they moved along the hallway. "Carter's waiting for you both so just head on down once you drop your bags. We'll reconvene in the morning to discuss options."

After two hours in medical, during which Carter took particular care to assess the healing of the wound in his side and Natasha's abdominal stab wound, they were cut loose to occupy themselves until their meeting with the bosses. Noticing the glances that were cast their way as they moved along the hallways, he tracked the emotional nuances in the expressions that he saw, reading the response of others to see how people really felt about the return of the Hawk and the Widow. He saw surprise, resentment, curiosity and respect and he knew that the sooner they were off base and in the field the better it would be for everyone.

It seemed that their weren't many agents on the roster who hadn't heard something about what had happened in the summer and whatever they had heard had obviously coloured their opinions.

"You see they way they're looking at us?" Natasha muttered from the side of her mouth. She kept her head high and challenged anyone who was brave enough to meet her gaze to give voice to their thoughts. None of them did.

He stayed close to her side, not touching her but close enough that he could feel the warmth of her on the air against his skin. "They've heard rumours," he told her, "but they don't know what to believe. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

She accepted his assessment without comment, simply inclining her head in an almost imperceptible nod as they moved along the hallways toward the cafeteria. They had made this journey before, back when she had been in the grips of her worst identity crisis and he'd had to almost force her to enter the cafeteria and eat, but Natasha was better now and she walked with all that delicious strength that told the world that her reputation was steeped in fact and not merely the fabrication of a handler who had wanted her to do well. In that moment, watching her walking at his side, strong and whole and recovered from something that could easily have broken her, he was proud of her.

They ate alone but that was nothing new, even before the rumours had started other agents had been wary of them. After the Avengers and the events of the last year, it would have taken a brave junior agent to approach them and after the investigation into their conduct the more experienced and career conscious agents avoided them like the plague. The solitude suited them, they had never needed anyone but each other.

It came as no surprise to him when he found himself outside the door to her quarters in the small hours of the morning, just as it came as no surprise to him when she opened the door at his first knock, wide awake and dressed in only a slouchy oversized shirt that she had stolen from him some time earlier. Stepping inside, he let his gaze take in the sight that greeted him, inch after inch of porcelain pale skin giving way to the hem of his grey shirt, that fiery hair that he adored falling past her bare shoulder and curling at the ends. The smile she offered him was more comforting than any words.

"It's late," she told him. Moving over to the cot in the corner and tucking her feet up beneath her. He could tell by the covers that she hadn't slept, that she hadn't even attempted to sleep.

"Couldn't sleep," he admitted, sitting beside her, "too much noise compared with being out in the country."

"And here I thought you could sleep anywhere," she remarked, no doubt thinking of all the times that he had been able to snatch sleep between bombing raids and in the midst of gunfire that raged wherever they had been posted. She was right, he had always been able to sleep wherever he laid his head, Natasha had always envied him that skill, but that had been before he had grown used to sleeping with her at his side.

Barton chuckled, leaning his shoulder against hers. "Feels like we were never away doesn't it?" he asked her, thinking that their return was a lot like every time they had come back to base from a lengthy job except this time their quarters here didn't feel like home. This time he felt for the first time that he had left home behind and returned to work.

"At least it sounds like we'll be out of here in no time at all," she replied, resting her head against his shoulder.

They passed the rest of the night side by side, awake and waiting, before he slipped back to his own quarters to shower and change for their meeting and allowed her to do the same. Two hours later they were on a jet headed to Europe and the assassination of an arms dealer with links to several organisations on SHIELD's radar. The plan was simple enough, Natasha would infiltrate the target's organisation and he would provide backup should she need it. After they had extracted the required intel, they would quietly dispose of the threat and be back on a plane to headquarters to collect their next assignment.

Suited up and ready to go, he glanced at his partner who was cleaning her handguns at his side. He had once seen her strip and reassemble those guns in under a minute while blindfolded so he didn't doubt that she knew her way around them. "Just like old times huh Nat?"

She turned, mouth curling up at the corners with the beginnings of a smile. "Just like old times," she repeated. He caught the current of her excitement and knew without asking why she was so juiced about the job ahead. It had nothing to do with the target and nothing to do with the plan, it was all about the location. "Do you think they know," she asked, " that they gave us this assignment because of where it is?"

He considered the question, the knowing glint that he was sure that he had seen in Hill's eye as she handed them the file. They were heading back where it had all began for them, back to the city in which they had become partners not just two agents assigned to work together under Caulson's watchful eye. It was in this particular city where he had first looked at her as more than a spy and realised that their partnership had way more potential than he had ever considered. They were going back to where he had saved her life and he had started to fall in love with her. "Maybe," he admitted finally, "but I hear that Budapest is beautiful at this time of year."


End file.
